“What’s the score?” he asked Ira.
“One hundred and four,” was the pleased answer.
“Any casualties on our side?”
Ira hesitated. “No,” he answered. “Not tonight. Though a couple were bunged up a bit. Last night, however, Tolon was captured.”
“Tolon!” Mark exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know it until just now,” Ira said. “While you were sitting there, one of our men came in, pretty much the worse for wear. He’d gotten in a fight last night and spent the day recovering his senses. He just remembered that before he got in the fight, he saw Tolon taken into the private prison of the nobles.”
“Where is he?”
Ira led Mark to one of the bedrooms. He saw the pain-wracked body of a wizened, middle-aged man writhing on the bed. His eyes were wild with the delusions of fever and weakness.
“He’s injured badly,” Ira said. “I’ve sent for a doctor, one of our own men.”
Mark bent over the man and looked in his eyes. Immediately he became still, and the pained look left his face. Across his forehead was a jagged cut, its edges inflamed and swollen.
Mark passed a hand over the cut and held it there for a few seconds. The inflamed condition indicated that infection had set in, and Mark knew that his hand would kill the germs which caused it. Omega had once told him that the radioactivity of his blood sent emanations for several inches outside his body, and were sure death to any micro-organism they touched.
He had used this quality many times in the past dozen years to heal the untended wounds of the hardy Vikings, who were inclined to ignore any injury which left them with all limbs intact.
The man’s eyes opened and the light of sanity returned to them.
“Take it easy, fellow,” said Mark, soothingly. “Tell me what you saw last night, if you feel strong enough.”
The man cleared his throat and began. His voice was weak and rasping at first, but gained strength as he went on.
“The nobles’ prison,” he said. “Where they take the ones who work against Vargo — the ones who aren’t hypnotized. Dene Baron and another man had them covered with guns. I waited down the street but they didn’t come out while I was there.”
“They?” asked Mark. “Was someone besides Tolon captured?”
“Two women. Girls, rather. Both beautiful. The nobles will keep them, but you’d better send after Tolon. He’s the third to go in there in the last week and the others didn’t come out.”
Mark turned to Ira, who looked decidedly grave. “What is this nobles’ prison?” he asked.
“We can’t touch it,” said Ira. “We’ve, never been able to get a man out of it. The nobles use it for special captives who rebel against the dictates of Vargo. Ordinary offenses are dealt with in the regular police courts, but the ones who go to the nobles’ prison are never heard from again. They get no trial at all.”
“Where is it?”
“Not far from the palace,” Ira replied. “They say there’s a passage between the two. The belief is that Vargo himself imposes sentence on any captives who are taken there. Poor Tolon. He was one of our best men. Always cheerful, and a demon in a fight.”
Mark scratched his chin. “I don’t like the way you used the past tense,” he said. “I’d rather use the present when referring to Tolon. Take me to this prison, while it’s still dark.”
Chapter 19: Blackout for an Oldster
A THIN crescent of a moon was just setting in the west. In the east there was a faint lightening of the sky which would spread and increase in brightness as the seconds advanced. Mark knew that his time was limited when he sent his guide back to headquarters and soared toward the upper windows of the prison.
Accordingly he paid little attention to the noise he made as he wrenched at the bars of a window high up on the sheer face of the prison’s western wall. Dimly, he could see a long gloomy corridor, only faintly visible by the glow which entered a similar window at its other end.
That window looked out toward the east, and the heightening of the light made him increase his efforts with the stubborn bars.
Finally, with a savage burst which almost pulled the skin from his hands, he wrenched them from their sockets, tearing loose handfuls of powdered concrete in the process.
He lowered himself into the corridor, dropping the last few feet to the stone floor. His sandals made a swift patter as he sped along looking for a staircase to the lower floors. There were cells in this corridor, but none was occupied. He guessed that this was an unused floor, probably out of service since Vargo’s rise. It looked like an ancient place, probably once well populated.
But if, as Ira had said, it was only used for rebels against the authority of Vargo, there wouldn’t be many occupants in the palace. There couldn’t be many rebels, for one doesn’t rebel when under the influence of hypnotism.
The lower floor of the building was windowless, Mark had noted, and it was there that he would find Tolon.
There was a stair entrance in the middle of the corridor. Mark passed it once without seeing it, for its door was the same as the ones which led into the cells. Fortunately it wasn’t locked, and he saved the minutes he would have had to use in forcing it. It creaked protestingly as he swung it aside. He swore silently and hoped the sound couldn’t be heard below.
THE stairway wound down in short flights, a barred door at each landing. Mark’s quiet profanity attained new heights as each of the doors made known its objection to being moved. The noise couldn’t be helped, however, and seconds were precious.
He moved down the last flight and was relieved to see a stone door at the bottom. A crack of light shone on the floor beneath it. If the sounds had been heard, he reasoned, someone would be opening that door to investigate. The fact that it was shut was a good sign.
Gropingly he fumbled for a knob or latch. The chances were against the door’s being unlocked, but he hoped for the best. He hadn’t thought to provide himself with a gun or anything which could be used as a tool to batter away a lock.
But as he groped he remembered the bars he had left on the floor beneath the forced window. One of them would make a good crowbar. On the other hand, it would make a lot of noise as well.
If the thing was locked, he might as well knock and demand entrance, trusting to luck and hypnotism from that point on.
His hand found the latch. The door was unlocked.
Cautiously he opened it, an inch at a time. This door was apparently resigned to being moved, for it made no protest. The crack at the bottom became wider, as he pulled the door toward him. Electricity made that light, which meant that there were guards in the room beyond. An electric light wouldn’t be left burning for the prisoners.
Mark peered through the crack he had made. A blank wall met his gaze. A little further... The edge of a cell door came into view. The light came from a point to the left out of his line of vision. That’s where the guards would be. A light cough from that direction confirmed his guess.
A little more... He could now see almost half of the cell door. Tolon might be back of that door! As soon as the stone portal moved enough for him to get through and see the guard, or guards, he would step forth without warning and hypnotize them on the spot. They mustn’t get a chance to draw their pistols.
Suddenly the stone door let out a shriek of outraged, rusty hinges. As if the sound had touched off a spring, Mark leaped into the room, turning to face the direction from which the cough had come.
But he didn’t complete the maneuver. His eyes passed fleetingly across the door of the cell he had been seeing, and then stopped abruptly, shocked by the sight they saw! In the cell was a vision of loveliness...
“Nona!” gasped Mark — and pitched to the floor.
HIS eyes had never reached the guard who had stood motionless, gun in hand, watching the slowly moving stone door. His ears hadn’t been quick enough to catch the sound of the shot, nor the whine of the bullet that
struck him down.
Nona bit at her knuckles as she watched the guard turn Mark over with a foot. For a second she thought...
But no, it was an old man who lay there on the floor. His skin was white, and less than five days ago she had seen the deep tan of her husband.
She had been sleeping on the cot against the wall when the shot had rung out. She must have dreamed that she had heard Mark’s voice, the instant before the shot had awakened her.
Mark’s hair was an unruly chestnut, and he was clean shaven. This poor old fellow was snow white and had a beard that must have taken years of loving care to nurture to its present magnificent proportions.
She calmed herself when she became thoroughly convinced that the man on the floor wasn’t Mark Then abruptly she was furious as the guard callously dragged the inert body across the floor and dumped it in an unoccupied cell.
“Aren’t you going to help him?” she yelled. “Call a doctor!”
The guard looked at her quizzically, then carefully spat on the floor. “Take it easy, lady,” he admonished. “He’s dead. And if he ain’t he’d better be. People don’t go busting into Vargo’s jails and then live to brag about it.”
“A fine thing!” said Nona tartly. “How do you know he wasn’t lost? The least you can do is report it; Vargo will tear your ears off if you don’t.”
The guard laughed. “Lost!” he scoffed. “How could he get in here, if he was just lost... Say! How did he get in here anyway? There’s nothing back of that door but —”
The guard exploded into sudden activity. He peered into the cell where he had placed the old man, then slammed the cell door, locking it. Then he glanced up and down the cell corridor, as if to make certain that everything was all right. Next he disappeared through the stone door which led upstairs.
A clamor came from the other end of the corridor. Gladys wanted to know what had happened. Tolon was also curious. A thief by the name of Forney added a feeble voice to the demands for information. Nona obliged.
Forney had been in the prison for several days and his voice was weak because he hadn’t been fed. When he became weak enough, Vargo would work on him. A similar fate awaited Tolon. Vargo had failed to get any information from him by hypnotism, for he had been fully prepared to resist and had resisted.
Torture was next on the program, though it had always failed in the past, and would fail again. The members of the fraternity were tough people.
ALTHOUGH Forney had little to console him in his imprisonment, Tolon was finding a certain enjoyment in the state. His cell was directly across from that of Gladys, and Gladys wasn’t hard to look at.
He liked the shy way she looked across at him, especially when he caught her at it. The faint blush which had several times appeared in her cheeks when she glanced his way and found him intently admiring her, delighted him.
Nor was he greatly concerned or worried about coming events. He had been in quite a few tight places in his career, and had always come out with a whole skin. There was a certain ever-present buoyancy about Tolon’s nature which made it impossible for him to conceive of disaster before it actually struck him.
It was more than likely, he figured, that when they took him out of the cell to torture him he would get a chance to turn the tables and escape, taking the others with him.
Sound of the guard’s footsteps diminished in the distance as he trotted to the upper floors. But with their cessation, the prisoners became aware that other footsteps were nearing. They made a hollow sound, as if echoing against the walls of a narrow corridor. They paused and there came the sound of a massive iron lock clinking over its tumblers. A faint rasping of unoiled hinges followed.
A new figure appeared in the cell corridor, it was Dene Baron. Nona raised a clamor without delay, shaking the iron door of her cell.
“Quiet!” snapped Baron.
“I won’t!” returned Nona. “See what you can do for that old man in the next cell. The guard shot him. Do something!”
Baron looked surprised, but went to look in the next cell. The white-haired figure lay limply on the floor. There was a streak of blue, dried and matted, in the center of the scalp. Baron reached for the ring of keys hanging on the opposite wall of the corridor, and fumbled with the lock.
“Where’s the guard?” he asked.
“He went upstairs to see how the old man got in,” Nona told him.
Baron hesitated, before opening the cell door, and looked extremely thoughtful. The three lower floors were windowless, he knew. A ladder was out of the question. The lowest windows were entirely too high for that. No buildings adjoined the prison, and therefore no access could be had from other roofs. The only outside door to the prison was impregnable. And the passage to the palace was securely locked. That left — nothing!
Dene Baron looked carefully at the supine figure on the cell floor. There was no discernible breath. Strands of the white whiskers had fallen across the lips, and they were motionless. The man was dead. There wasn’t a doubt of that. But — was this the same man?
Dene Baron was no fool, and in any case two and two invariably added to four. Only a bird could have gained entrance to the prison through the upper floors. And while the man may have been here for some time, and had hidden on the upper floors, he still couldn’t have come in through the front door or the passageway.
That left the windows, through which a bird might have flown. Or a man who could fly like a bird!
Baron had never seen such a man, but he had heard of one. A young man, bronzed, and wearing a winged helmet. Like a picture he had once seen of an ancient god called Mercury. But such a man could be disguised. He must find out.
STILL keeping a wary eye on the corpse, he unlocked the door. For while Baron was no fool, he did have a streak of superstition in his make-up. Millions of people had once worshiped gods of various sorts. There might be something to it. The story he had heard of the man who flew, certainly sounded like it.
And if he could fly, maybe he could do other things. Possibly he didn’t breathe air like men. What nonsense! The guard had shot him and brought him down. A god wouldn’t be brought down by a bullet. Gods were immortal.
With renewed confidence Baron strode to the side of the old man. He leaned over, looking for a wound, and also for signs of a disguise. Suddenly he tried to jump back, but was too late by a wide margin.
Fingers of tempered steel found his throat and throttled him. Eyes, burning with a wild intensity, bored into his. Frantically he pounded at the body of the old man, but felt himself getting weaker, moment by moment. Eventually he went limp and the fingers let him drop, lifeless, to the floor.
“Is he alive?” called Nona.
She was startled to see the aged man emerge into the corridor, staggering slightly and shaking his head with an expression of bewilderment on his fine old face. Dene Baron didn’t reappear. The old man peered at her uncertainly and shook his head again.
He walked, touching the sides of the corridor to keep his balance, toward the other cells. Then he seemed surprised to find a few of them occupied. He looked at Tolon and Gladys, then finally at Forney, but made no attempt to release them.
Tolon watched the old man, a puzzled expression on his face. The aged figure was faintly familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Long, white beard, hollow cheeks... He finally gave it up, deciding that the old fellow must resemble someone he had seen.
“Say, old man,” he called. “Suppose you get that bunch of keys and unlock these doors.”
The old man turned back at the sound of the voice, and crouched warily, but made no sign that he had understood. Finally deciding that no harm could come from the man behind the iron door, he relaxed and came erect. Then he crouched again, at the sound of footsteps coming from the direction of the stone door. When he identified the source, he quietly placed himself beside the doorway and waited.
He seemed to have regained more control of his legs, for he had walked to his position of ambush with
a degree of certainty, no longer requiring a steadying hand on the wall.
The footsteps came nearer and the old man tensed. The guard stepped forth from the doorway, and again the steel fingers sank into a soft throat. This time they didn’t choke, slowly and thoroughly, as they had with Baron. The thumbs dug into the back of the neck and the fingers raised, forcing the chin up. It was a sudden twisting motion, and the guard’s feet raised off the floor for an instant. Then the neck snapped, and the body became limp.
The old man held the body for a minute, the toes barely touching the stone floor. Then he cast it down, his eyes again burning wildly. Like a trapped animal he looked up and down the corridor, then strode swiftly toward one end of it.
The heavy door to the street seemed to baffle him, though its latch was a simple one. He turned back and stopped at Nona’s cell. Wondering vaguely why she shrank back at his approach, he marveled at her lithe body.
HE SUDDENLY decided that he wanted this beautiful creature. He didn’t know why — he just wanted her. He frowned at the bars of the door which separated them. Grasping them, he shook. They rattled with a loud clatter. The sound scared him and he stepped back, snarling. But when the door showed no sign of attacking him, he gingerly approached it again.
Suddenly taking a bar in each hand, he pulled, exerting every ounce of strength. Gratifyingly, the door bent in the middle, sliding the tongue of its lock out of the socket. He pulled it open and stepped inside.
Nona shrank back into the depths of the cell. The old man walked after her smiling in anticipation. He reached forth, grabbed a wrist, and pulled her to him. His pulse increased rapidly at the contact of her warm body.
Nona hauled off and struck at him with a balled fist. At first he looked surprised, then he laughed — a wild crazy laugh that somehow conveyed the idea that he had expected her to resist, and gloried in it.
The laugh stopped abruptly, however, when another blow hit his cheek with a sound thud. He snarled suddenly and reached for her throat. It yielded softly under the pressure of his fingers.
The Best of Argosy #7 - Minions of Mercury Page 14