So we picked up our gear and set off along the way through the chamber we had not explored previously. The way led on, smoothly, until we came to a low-ceiled room, at the farther end of which was set a large door, and a smaller at its side. One, the larger, was green, and the smaller was red.
Everybody set down their burdens and waited. I felt that same prickling on me as I feel when unseen eyes smolder upon my naked back, as a great beast readies itself to spring. I said, “The red door."
Ornol swung to face me. His pallor shone. “Red? Red—that is no color for a true Pandaheem! I choose the green!"
“Well,” I said, forgetting all about niceties of address, “green is not the color of Pandahem. That is blue."
“If you seek a quarrel—"
I drew a breath. I was in for it now. Like a calsany, stubborn and onkerish, I dug my heels in.
“I go through the red door. Those who wish may go with you through the green."
Immediately, Skort chirped out: “I go with the strom."
“And I,” said the sorcerer.
Kalu, quietly, said, “I will go with the Bogandur."
We all looked at Exandu. Shanli mopped his brow.
He looked at Ornol and then at me, at the large green door and the small red door. He sweated. He shook. He turned his eyes up piteously.
“Does no one then think of my poor old bones? Of my feet which are blistered to the bone? How I ache!"
Shanli whispered in his ear. He sighed.
“Very well. I mean you no offense, Strom Ornol. You, I think, understand that.” And here Exandu jingled the pouch of gold he carried strapped to his waist belt. We did not miss the significance of the gesture. “But I go with Dray the Bogandur, through the red door."
Ornol's head jerked back. His nostrils pinched in.
“Very well.” He swung his sword, commandingly. “Come!"
He ordered his slaves to kick the green door open. They did so. A sweet scent wafted and light shone. They all went through, two by two, warriors with swords, porters with burdens, and we heard their excited exclamations of pleasure and wonder gradually fading on the scented air.
“Perhaps...” stammered Exandu.
Seg turned to me, preoccupied. “Why make an issue of it now?"
“The red door just—seems right."
“Perhaps we ought—” Exandu started over. “They sound very jolly."
The green door slammed in our faces.
I kicked the red door open.
A dim blueish light shone at the head of a flight of stairs. Those stairs stretched wide to either side. On each tread a tall golden candelabrum upheld in clenched fists five golden candles. The flames rose, tall, sharp, flowerlike in their involuted calmness. The blue light dropped down, pervading everything that golden light did not reach. The air tanged, harsh, warningly. I stepped through and Hop the Intemperate, so close he pushed me aside a little, thrust his ten-foot pole ahead.
The pole clanged against marble. The floor of the space above the flight of stairs remained firm, unyielding.
We moved through the doorway, and paused, gazing down the stairs into a vast inchoate blueness far beneath.
The red door groaned and closed at our backs.
We were a small party; Kalu and his men, Exandu, Shanli and Hop and their people. Seg and myself. We stood looking down that breathtaking vista.
The red door groaned and closed—and the treads and risers of the stairway rotated and combined into a single long shining sheet, stretching away and away beneath—stretching into stygian blackness as all the candles were extinguished as one, and the blueness vanished.
In a sliding helpless mass we shot screaming down into the blackness.
* * *
Chapter sixteen
Red Water
Whoever crafted those steps was a master mason. There was not a fissure between tread and riser you could slide a hair through. Down that slippery slope in the utter darkness we slid, straight down, whoosh, helter-skelter, helplessly.
People slid into me, and whirled away, and the cries bounced from the roof, weirdly, echoing like bats trapped in a vault.
How long we skidded down I do not know. It could not have been much above four or five minutes; it felt like a lifetime. Without warning, smashingly, I went feet first into water. The shock knocked the breath from my lungs.
In a moment or two, with lungs aflame, I surfaced.
Flinging the hair back from my eyes and staring around I saw the darkness relieved by a somber red glow. Even as I watched and the heads began to bob up in the water alongside, the glow grew and deepened and became a blood-red drenching of fire all about.
It was borne in on me that, perhaps, just perhaps, red was not going to be the Prescot color in this pickle.
Hop the Intemperate, flailing away like a pregnant whale, surfaced, spouting.
“Help!"
I put a hand under his armpit. The armor we wore would drag us down if we did not shed it or find a landing place very quickly.
Across from me a ledge of rock showed.
“The rock!” I heaved up and bellowed. “Make for the rock."
We all started splashing. A Pachak at my side, using an economical three-handed paddle, dived away, yelling.
At his side, glimpsed in rosy silver flakings in the red light and the water a long fish shape darted.
Fangs opened wide, tiny eyes glared black and malevolent. Fins shivered silver. The great fish opened its jaws and bore in, hungrily.
Time, time! There was no time! I drew my old sailor knife and dived under. The sleek belly sped past above, and the legs of the Pachak kicked just beyond. Quickly, quickly! The sailor knife, honed to a wicked edge, sliced all along the guts of the fish. Redness poured out. I drew the knife along, and then turned, flailing my arms, shot for the surface. There was time only to see Hop scrambling up onto the ledge, and Seg hoisting Shanli up, before I'd drawn in a mighty lungful of air and so dived again.
There were more of the giant fish, wicked jaws agape, silver and red in the water, arrowing in.
Three of them, three I took.
Then I surfaced and Seg hauled me out.
Exandu was wailing and moaning—he had a slash along his left calf and he swore that his leg had been taken off for dinner.
Shanli calmed him. I was trembling. The fish had been—had been deadly in their intent.
We huddled on the ledge and dripped water. In that ruddy light the water dropped like blood.
Pieces of fish rose to the surface and reddened the red water, and monstrous shapes fought over them, and devoured them. Hop shuddered. He stared at me as though drugged.
“You saved us all!"
“No,” I said. “I took but three."
“But,” he said, and pointed, “see!"
And there were many more than three fish corpses being consumed in the bloody water.
I stood up. I clutched the wall for support.
“I am going this way.” I started to move. I didn't care which way we went “Follow me."
Obediently, they stood up, shaking, and followed.
The ledge, slippery with fungoid things, broadened. We passed under an overhang and entered a series of chambers cut from the rock. Here, in the pervasive ruby light, giant and obscene carvings leered at us from every wall, from the roof, pranced at our side, seeming to move and beckon as we passed. I thought to shield Shanli from these awful sights, but she strode on, head up, supporting Exandu, not looking to right or left, but guiding his path.
Then, I thought—the people who construct these places love to put these carvings here, and so was myself again, able to be mocking and cynical and no longer wrought up by the darkness and the ruby light and giant fish and the horror of fangs closing on naked and quivering flesh.
As we passed on I counted the people with us; we had not lost a single soul.
Forcing our way through hanging slimy growths, like seaweed, dangling at the exit to the caverns, o
n we went. We were attacked by reptilian things that skittered and chirped and slashed their stingers at our legs as we passed. We squashed them and moved on.
We were assailed by stenches released from corpse pits abandoned for centuries, we stopped up our nostrils and pressed on. Skeletons dangled in our path, and came to life and sought to drag us down with bony fingers. These we cut to pieces, bone by bone, limb by limb. We sundered their blasphemous forms, and went on.
In a cavern drenched in a pallid greenish light a giant dragon, a risslaca of horns and scales and tri-tails, essayed the task of slaying and eating us. Him we shot with arrows, from bows freshly strung with dry strings, and cut him with spears, and so drove him sobbing back into a rocky corner. We left him there, cowering from our spite, and did not kill him, and pressed on.
We pressed on. That was the sum of our achievement.
Our clothes were ripped and shredded and torn to pieces. Our limbs were raked by talons, and torn and bloodied. Our armor was dented. Our helmets hung lopsidedly. Many of our weapons were broken. But we pushed on, on...
And, at last, a ragged scarecrow bunch, we stumbled on a stair that led upward.
“I cannot climb,” declared Exandu. He sank down. “I am done for."
“Would you have Shanli carry you on her back? Would you bear that shame?"
“Shame? What shame?"
Seg stepped forward. He lifted Exandu. The man was large and well-filled, with a nose of size; Seg lifted him as he would a little child. “I will carry you up."
“Horkandur,” whispered Exandu. “Horkandur."
So, up the stairs we went, and we went carefully, for we had had our bellyful of tricks and traps.
At the top a small red door stood before us. I did not kick it in with casual violence. We looked all about, and we prodded with our poles. We pushed the door with a pole from a safe distance. And we were quiet and we listened.
The door eased open.
Red light shafted out.
Kalu, at my side, took a breath. “We have been through much, Bogandur. But there is worse to come."
“In that case,” I said, and I own to that old Prescot madness upon me, “we will front it now!"
And I bashed the door open and leaped through.
I did not die. I am here to prove that.
I would have done so if Seg, ready with arrow notched and drawn, had not loosed with deadly aim.
Yet the fellow who would have had me was only a normal human being, a malko, a ferocious gorilla-faced chap with massive muscles, of a stocky, dour, indrawn disposition. He dropped on me from above the door, and his curved sword slashed for my throat.
Seg's shaft took him clear through his back, punched on through lungs and chest and shattered out in a splattering gush of blood. I slashed sideways as I rolled clear.
The room was wide, bright with lanterns, and a dozen more of the gorilla-faced malkos ran up, weapons glittering.
These were only men, ferocious, and armed; they were nothing compared with the terrors through which we had passed. Seg stepped up, shooting like a fountain of shafts, and Hop surged alongside me, with Kalu on the other side, and his Pachaks with him. The fight was brief and exceedingly ferocious. At its conclusion the malkos lay dead, and still we had not lost a warrior.
Sweat and blood bedabbled us. We glared at the high-domed chamber under the lights.
Along one side a row of cages stood, black-barred and empty. A few tables and benches, strewn with discarded scraps of food and warrior trappings, huddled in one corner. Seven doors opened at the far end. Nearer at hand, a door stood in an angle. The air held a cloying, stale smell.
“I must have a drink,” cried Exandu. He lay where Seg had dropped him. Shanli cooed over him. Kalu stepped out into the hall, his warriors with him, and they carried out a swift but thorough search. I crossed to the door in the angle.
“Take care, Bogandur,” called Seg.
He stood at my back, arrow to string, half drawn, ready.
I did not say, as it crossed my mind to do, “With you at my back, Seg, I have no need for care.” Cautiously, I pushed open the door with my sword.
A corridor lay exposed. The light was not as bright. A fresh rotting smell gusted out. Four doors broke the left-hand wall, and one to the right lay recessed, with a red lamp above the arch. I stepped forward.
Stepping with exquisite care, testing every footfall, I inched along to look into the barred opening of the first door. The cell lay empty, straw-strewn and stinking.
The second cell contained a skeleton, cruelly chained to the wall.
The third cell held a woman.
She stared up as I looked in. She held herself with such commanding power, clad in rags, her hair stringy and tangled, that my heart leaped. She stared with a bright and hostile arrogance upon me as I peered in through the bars.
The cell door was barred from the outside. I lifted the bar, in a gesture at once matching her arrogance, and pitiful in my instinctive reaction. I lifted the bar and threw it aside.
A sliding screech sounded in my ears.
Instantly I hurled myself headlong, fingers scrabbling for the edge of the pit the trapdoor beneath my feet opened.
Only a catlike swiftness saved me. I caught the edge and hung. Dangling, I hung there as the harsh croaking voices of malkos sounded, gobbling in glee. They broke from the recessed door with the red light above it. They swarmed across the corridor, their weapons lifted, their gorilla faces alive with sadistic glee at my plight and their solution to my problem.
Suspended over a gulf—which at its floor held a bed of spikes, I did not doubt, if nothing worse—I saw the onrush of the guards. There were six of them. They wielded spears and axes. They rushed.
My muscles cracked as I sought to lever myself up.
Seg's bow loosed. With blurring speed he loosed again. Two of the malkos pitched forward, skewered. Then Seg, with a bellow of pure rage, hurled himself forward. His sword flamed. I got an elbow up, then the other, chinned myself over the lip and rolled. Seg's blade clashed violently with the axe of the first malko, twirled and thrust. A spear slashed down Seg's side and he reeled away, and came back, raging. I was up on a knee. The next malko sought to smash Seg's brains out, and was punctured for his pains. The others closed in, and for a moment Seg was slashing and hacking, leaping and ducking, a magnificent fighting warrior, battling for his life and the life of his comrade.
Then I got myself—tardily, tardily!—into action and dinted the last of them. He fell full length with a clash of armor.
Seg shooshed a great breath, and wiped a bloody hand across his face. His sword dripped.
“Hai, Jikai!” cried the woman, walking from her cell. “I give you the High Jikai!"
“My lady!” said Seg.
“Aye,” I said, speaking with a rush. “And I give you the High Jikai, too, Seg."
We stood for a moment, there in that blood-soaked corridor in a place of horrors, and took our breath. Then Seg said, “Llahal, my lady. I am Seg. And this is Dray."
She managed a smile. She did not look at the mangled corpses. “You are welcome. You have come with a strong party of warriors to rescue the king and queen?"
“Well, no, my lady,” said Seg.
“But you must have! Why else would you venture into the Coup Blag, this vile place in the Snarly Hills?"
I said, “There is gold, my lady, and treasure."
She looked stunned. Then, “You have not seen the king, the queen? Or any of—their people?"
“Only a poor devil of a Pachak, who died."
We must have looked like very devils, ourselves, Seg and me. We were battle-stained, blood-splashed, grimed and sweaty. Our swords reeked. We were big, muscle-bulging fellows with hardy looks and uncommon quick ways. She sucked in her breath.
Seg said, “My lady. Our swords are at your command."
“Yes, yes, Jikais. But—those poor people—I came here with the queen to look for the king. We did not find
him. We found horror and death. And the bandits were too frightened—"
“Yes,” I said. “Do not fret over them now."
Seg began to wipe his sword on the tunic of a slain malko. I did the same. We were careful to wipe our hands and the hilts of our sword, scrupulous in cleansing them.
The woman said, “Lahal, you must forgive me.” She swayed. “My name is Milsi and I serve Queen Mab. And you are drikingers, also."
“Lahal, Milsi,” said Seg. “No. No, we are not bandits."
“But—"
And then Exandu tottered along, staring at the corpses and mopping his brow.
“Careful of that great hole in the floor,” said Seg.
“What—” He saw Milsi. “A woman, Seg the Horkandur?"
“Aye,” said Seg. “The lady Milsi."
She had said she served Queen Mab and it was quite clear from her demeanor and carriage that she was no serving wench. She looked with some curiosity upon Exandu, and, in truth, he looked like us, a right bundle of rags and blood.
She addressed Seg, and he instantly attended to her, bending only a little, his face intent.
“The next cell. Would you look, please?"
“The bar—” I warned.
“Aye."
Seg looked in and I peered over his shoulder. A corpse of a woman, half-naked, with long dark hair astrew, lay collapsed against the wall. Seg turned at once.
The woman sighed at his face.
“So she is dead, then—a friend—oh, this hideous place!"
And Seg put his arms about the lady Milsi, and comforted her.
Kalu and his people came in then to report that nothing stirred in the chamber. We had seven doors from which to make a choice. Which would it be?
“My lady,” said Seg, and I marveled at the gentleness of his voice in these horrific surroundings. “You have knowledge of this place? This maze of the Coup Blag?"
She pulled back a little from him and looked up, and the tears stood in her eyes. “No. No, I do not know—I know only that we must find the king—and the queen—and leave with our lives—if we can."
“We must do more than that,” put in Kalu, with his usual cheerfulness. He appeared undaunted by the terrors through which we had gone. “I, for one, do not intend to leave without my fair share of treasure."
Mazes of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #27] Page 14