He looked about him. The corridor was lit by perfumed torches. The arched doorway off to his left led to the stables. The doorway on his right stood open, and he could see storage rooms beyond. Obviously his route lay upward.
He dismounted, tossed the reins to a lackey, tucked his whip under his arm. His hands spoke disdainfully. Take me to the duke.
One of the lackeys turned at once and headed for the broad ramp, and Darzek followed him. He was enormously relieved that it was not a staircase. Probably its width and gentle slope were planned so that carts could be hauled from one level of the castle to another, but the knights of Kamm could have preferred ramps for the same reason that Darzek did: so they could ascend or descend without stumbling over the outlandishly long, curved toes of their riding boots.
Long before Darzek reached the top of the ramp, he could hear the clatter of the banquet room. Noises produced by the unrefined guzzling of food blended with the racket of other revolting table manners that would have affected the appetites of fellow diners anywhere except in a land of the deaf. As the lackey started down the broad corridor past more flickering, perfumed torches, Darzek lengthened his stride to overtake and pass him. Through a wide archway at the end of the corridor, he could see diners seated at rough tables. None of them looked in his direction. They were totally occupied with the heaping platters of food. Darzek strode toward them.
As he approached the arch he began to run. He ran carefully—his planned dramatic entrance would be a farce if he stumbled over his toes. He burst through the arch at top speed, leaped, landed perfectly on the nearest table, scattering the platters. Miraculously he retained his balance. Two tables away, on a raised platform, sat the duke and his superior advisers, a solemn row of red-clad, gluttonous knights. Other knights, lackeys, servants, and retainers sat at the lower tables. Beyond the duke’s party, the castle females were eating.
The duke’s face went white with fear and surprise, Darzek, the glowering black knight of the Winged Beast, transfixed him with his most formidable stare.
The previous day, for some nefarious purpose known best to himself, the duke had sent out three of his own knights disguised as knights of the Winged Beast. Darzek guessed that he wanted their misdeeds blamed on the black knights rather than on his own. Now the duke found himself suddenly confronted by an apparently genuine knightly priest who arrived at an unheard of hour on an unknown mission that easily could have concerned the duke’s own transgressions. Darzek had gambled that the duke would display a thunderingly guilty conscience the moment he appeared, and the effect was gratifying.
The silence that filled the room quickly became stifling. Not a single mouth ruffled that ominous hush by chewing. No hand reached for food, and what the hands already held remained frozen between platter and mouth. The plump little duke, whose mustaches were designed for a much larger face, had been caught on the upstroke of mastication. He opened his mouth and forgot to close it, and the mouthful of food rested revoltingly on his tongue.
Darzek paused long enough to make the most of the tense tableau, and then he aimed his fingers at the duke.
So this is the hospitality with which you greet distinguished emissaries. Shall I then transact my business with your underlings? No doubt I should find them better bred than you.
The duke’s mouth remained open. The silence continued.
Very well, Darzek hands continued. I’ll return to the stables and confer with the nabrula. Both their manners and their intelligences should be an improvement over those of the food slops I see here.
He turned. His leap carried him completely through the arch and out of the room. Again he miraculously managed to keep his balance. He landed and sprang sideways. Three long steps brought him to a narrow ascending ramp at the end of a short corridor. He darted up it.
Behind him, the monumental hush in the dining room continued. No one looked out to see where he had gone. He turned at the top of the ramp and all but collided with an elderly lackey. Darzek’s fingers stabbed an order. Take me to a vacant room.
The lackey turned obediently. At the end of the corridor he opened a door. Darzek pointed his Winged Beast amulet and sent him toppling to the floor. He dragged him into the room and closed the door behind him.
He dashed to the window. His sense of direction had not failed him. He looked out onto the deep valley, with the duke’s luminous garbage dump directly below.
Quickly he stripped off the knight’s armor and clothing. He jettisoned everything: clothing armor, boots, even the mustache and whip. He wiped his head with a damp towel he had brought, leaving his hair several shades lighter. He altered his complexion in the same way before he tossed out the towel.
Then he turned his attention to the lackey. He stripped him and struggled into the uniform. He could barely get the tunic on; the trousers and apron, being loose-fitting, were less of a problem, but they fit Darzek with an unstylish tightness. The sandals, though a vast improvement on the absurd riding boots, were painfully small. When he finished, he surveyed himself in a mirror. He made a passable lackey, he thought, but only for the castle’s dimmer corridors.
He dragged the unconscious lackey behind a mushroom-shaped bed and left him. He would be unconscious for hours, and by the time he awoke no one would believe him even if he had the courage to talk. Darzek left the room, closing the door behind him, and sedately, in his best lackey manner, he climbed a ramp to the next highest level. He was under no illusion about the security of his disguise, since Wenz had been caught in a lackey uniform two nights before, but it was the only one available.
As he headed for the next ascending ramp, he walked through stifling waves of perfume. Scent—from torches, from drapes, from wall hangings, from incense burners—scent was potently present throughout the castle, but on this floor it was overwhelming. On any other world he would have thought he’d located the castle’s harem; but on Kamm, perfume was used by males more than by females. He moved among the powerful fragrances breathing through his mouth, and he took the first ascending ramp he came to with a feeling of deep relief.
When he reached the next floor, he was at the top of the castle except for the turrets. He paused to listen attentively, but no sounds of pursuit reverberated below him. Seemingly his bold ploy had worked to perfection.
He derived small satisfaction from that, because he had no idea of what he should do next. The source of the death ray might be smaller than a flashlight. Perhaps the duke carried it in his own pocket. Darzek did not know what to look for, or where, or how long he would be able to search before his ill-fitting lackey’s uniform betrayed him.
But he knew that the pazul could be found. Wenz had found it. And he had found it high up in the castle. In the short time he’d been alive there, he could not have descended far.
Darzek found the spiraling ramp that pointed upward into one of the turrets. He climbed to the top and began to investigate its rooms as he descended. The ramp occupied the center of the tower, and at each level a room completely surrounded it. The effect, Darzek thought, was that of a square doughnut. These were storage rooms, packed with cabinets and chests of drawers and wardrobes, all filled with discarded clothing of various kinds and functions. Apparently the Duke Merzkion threw nothing away. Darzek gave the rooms a cursory search by moonlight, only occasionally risking a flash from his hand light. He doubted that the most alien mentality would conceal a pazul among discarded clothing.
In one room he happened onto a strange device. It looked vaguely like a rifle, but after examining it cautiously he decided that it was a broom. It had a long handle and a thickening base that was fitted with nabrula bristles. He picked it up and carried it with him. Somehow it seemed to give him the proper air of a lackey going about his business—even if neither he nor those he met knew what that business was.
He had searched rooms three quarters of the way down the spiraling ramp when a scurrying sound of feet reached him from below. He paused on the ramp and looked down. At that
instant a knight led a crowd of lackeys into view. There were no torches lighting the turret ramp, but Darzek’s form was visible in the dimness, and the knight saw him and ordered him down. As Darzek slowly descended, hobbling like an elderly lackey, the knight’s fingers asked, Have you seen a black knight?
Darzek leaned his broom against the wall and answered with the mien of humble stupidity. There are no knights here, sire, saving only your own honorable self.
The knight did not wait for him to finish. He turned and hurried away, and the lackeys rushed after him. Darzek methodically finished searching that tower and moved on to the next.
And to the next. And it was in the third tower, as he mounted the spiral ramp to commence his search, that he stumbled over a body.
He knelt and flashed his light.
It was Riklo.
CHAPTER 10
Long after the momentary brightness had faded, Darzek’s vision retained Riklo’s image in all of its pathetic detail. She wore the clothing of a female attendant. A trickle of blood had flowed from one nostril. Her synthetic face looked normal, but her eyes, which were her own, had hemorrhaged.
As he bent over her, suddenly he caught the rhythm of shallow breathing. Then she moaned faintly.
She had found the pazul.
And she had survived—barely.
He picked her up and carried her down the spiraling ramp. His thought was to get her away from that exposed place, where they were at the mercy of the first passer-by.
But when he reached the main corridor, he hesitated. He had no idea where to take her. By dramatically fixing a knight of the Winged Beast in everyone’s mind, he had made it possible for almost anyone else to pass unnoticed; but a lackey carrying a female attendant would certainly occasion comment, especially if the pair were headed toward an exit.
Suddenly she spoke. “Where are you taking me?”
He put her down and supported her until she regained sufficient control of herself to stand unaided. “I had some idea of getting you out of here,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Don’t you know?”
She closed her eyes and swayed dizzily. “Where are we?”
“The Duke Merzkion’s castle. Don’t ask me what you’re doing here. I’m looking for a pazul, and you’re supposed to be on your way to Northpor.”
“Oh.”
“I suppose you came to help me look. In any case, you found it. In this turret.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you remember?”
She thought for a moment. “I climbed the ramp. I was opening each door I passed and looking in, and I started to open a door, and that’s all I remember.”
She took a step and staggered, and he caught her before she fell. He started to pick her up again.
“I can walk,” she said.
She shook free of him, took another step, and collapsed. He caught her just in time.
“Let me rest a moment,” she pleaded.
“I will—just as soon as I find a safe place for you.”
He picked her up again and quickly moved to the far end of the corridor, where he mounted the ramp into a turret he’d already explored. He entered one of the rooms, dumped the contents of a wardrobe onto the floor, and helped Riklo to stretch out on the pile of clothing.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m going to have a look at the pazul. Then I’m coming back here, and we’ll decide how we’re going to get out.”
He closed the door to the room and hurried back down the ramp. In the main corridor he turned toward the central turret—but an army was there ahead of him, a file of knights and whip-armed lackeys that already had reached the turret and started up its ramp. Darzek faded back out of sight and watched. Two knights took up positions at the bottom of the ramp, and the lackeys arranged themselves just above. The turret was under guard. So was the pazul.
Darzek turned away. The time had come to settle for what they already had and get out while they could—if they could.
One of the knights had noticed Darzek and turned to watch him, so he affected the slow pace used by lackeys performing nominal duties and moved away from the turret where he had left Riklo. He turned into a side corridor, a short hallway with a single door on either side. He hesitated, opened one of the doors, entered. It was a group bedroom with a row of mushroom beds.
He lay down on one of them and carefully counted off five minutes. Then he left, walking slowly back the way he had come. The knight had lost interest in the limping lackey and turned his attention elsewhere, and Darzek was able to slip up the turret ramp unnoticed. He opened the door of the room where he had left Riklo—and found it empty.
He thought for a moment. He was certain she had not been captured, or the entire floor would have swarmed with officialdom and lackeys.
One of the casements was open slightly. Darzek went to it and leaned far out so he could look down the sheer wall of the castle. For a time he saw nothing at all. Then a drifting cloud suddenly released the light of two moons, and there she was. She and Wenz had been of different species, from different worlds, but she possessed a talent similar to his. She clung to the side of the building like the insect she may have been.
Darzek closed the window and turned away. She had imposed her own solution, leaving the way she came, and there was nothing more that he could do for her. His choices lay between looking for a place to sleep and finding his way out of the castle as quickly as possible. He decided to get out.
An ornate ceramic pot with a cover of wood stood on a low table. He aimed his hand light into it and found it filled almost to the top with polished stones of various colors and shapes. He picked up the pot and carried it with him.
He descended the ramp and limped along the corridor. Two knights and two lackeys now stood at the bottom of the ramp to the central turret, but they paid no attention to him. Eventually Darzek’s descent down a main ramp took him out of their line of sight. He continued to descend, and he met no one until he reached the level where he had left the unconscious lackey.
There the ramp ended in chaos. Knights stood about, their fingers confusedly asking questions that no one answered. Four lackeys were carrying out Darzek’s unconscious, nude victim. Other lackeys came and went. Darzek boldly entered into that revolving swarm and managed to emerge intact on the far side.
On the next level, a crowd of lackeys surrounded him. Some were conversing among themselves, something about a nabrulk, but Darzek could not follow their rapid speech without conspicuously staring at their hands. The traffic thinned out, and he found himself plodding along behind a knight in armor. Still carrying his ceramic pot, he followed on the heels of the knight’s massively toed boots. The ruse worked perfectly. The knight never looked back, and everyone they met thought Darzek was an attendant carrying something for his master. No one considered him worthy of a second glance.
The knight strode past the banquet hall and took the main descending ramp. The reek of the stables drifted up to meet them, and Darzek started breathing through his mouth. The knight went directly to the vast, vaulted room that was the main stable. In the center of that room, the duke himself stood surrounded by knights and lackeys.
They were examining a nabrulk. The beast’s yellow hide looked familiar, and Darzek risked a second glance at it and discerned a network of faded spots. It was the nabrulk he had ridden into the castle, and the creature was being cleaned. Riklo’s dyes had not fooled the castle’s nabrula keeper for long.
Off to one side, a group of knights in full regalia stood waiting, each with a lackey holding the reigns of his nabrulk. The knight Darzek had been following joined them.
Darzek turned back. Still carrying his pot, he left the stable and entered the doorway on the opposite side of the entrance corridor. Beyond the storage rooms he found a ramp leading downward. A torch flared at the bottom. He descended quickly. Minutes later he was on his way back up. The duke’s dungeon was a shoddy, cramp
ed place, and the only prisoners were dazed peasants. The guards, if there were any, had left their posts for the excitement on the upper levels.
Darzek returned to the stable. The knights were still there, talking among themselves. Darzek edged close to them and found a position behind a pillar. Obviously the knights were going somewhere. Before they could go, someone would have to raise a portcullis and open a gate. He set his pot down and waited alertly.
Finally the little duke turned his back on the nabrulk and waddled over to the knights. A knight signaled, and the heavy portcullis was hauled up. This was not the door Darzek had entered, but a much wider one, through which four knights could ride abreast.
Lackeys hurried up with nabrula, and the knights swung into their saddles and went through the opening in ranks of four. A crowd of lackeys surged through after them.
Darzek went with the lackeys. At the outer wall the knights halted, their nabrula stomping and wheezing restlessly, while the lackeys arranged themselves along a massive gate. Darzek selected his own position with care. They heaved and pushed, and when the gate finally stood open, Darzek was stationed at its outer end. When the lackeys scurried to either side to get out of the way of the knights, Darzek simply moved around the end of the gate. And when, after the knights had ridden away, the lackeys closed the gate, Darzek was left outside.
He was not missed. He waited in the shadow of the wall until the knights had passed beyond his hearing and the portcullis had crashed down. Then he dashed to the safety of the sponge forest and limped off through the waves of light and scent emitted by Kamm’s night creatures, with his stolen lackey sandals severely cutting his feet.
Avoiding the road, Darzek went directly to the forest clearing where his supplies were cached. There he found the perfumer’s cart, the three nabrula, and Riklo, who was already lost in a restless, feverish sleep in the cart.
He watched her for a time, deeply concerned. Then he decided that sleep probably was better for her than anything he could think of doing. He stretched out beside her, and the two of them slept long into daylight. Darzek was awakened once, by the rumble of nabrula hoofs on the nearby lane. He sleepily muttered for them to go away, and they did.
[Jan Darzek 04] - Silence is Deadly Page 11