by Don Wilcox
They brought Joe a basin of water and some clean clothes. Nitticello stopped him, however, just as he started to wash.
“Wait,” Nitticello said. He asked the six guards to station themselves outside the room. Then he turned to Joe. “I like the looks of that mud on your face.”
“Do you?” Joe folded his arms.
“It’s not quite right. But it isn’t bad.” Nitticello cocked his head this way and that. “I noticed something very interesting about your face soon after you arrived. That’s why I didn’t let you go with the girl. I can use you. This is the best piece of luck I’ve had m years.”
Joe studied his face in the mirror, and suddenly he knew what the prime minister was talking about. He resembled the king.
He wasn’t groomed like the king, by any manner or means. But he had the king’s face, feature for feature, from his high forehead, wide dark eyebrows and clear blue eyes to his well-molded chin and full muscled neck. The same straight, prominent nose, the same high angular cheekbones.
Nitticello, disregarding Joe’s own unshaven stubble, was plastering a dab of mud on Joe’s upper lip in the shape of the king’s thin drooping black mustache. He added a small spadeshaped beard. Then he stepped back to study the effect. He smiled—a slightly twisted smile.
He pinned Joe’s shock of hair into a single thick upright wing. He was definitely pleased. He became talkative, trying to win Joe over with a quick show of friendship. Joe didn’t like it.
“The people would never know,” Nitticello said. “If we dressed you up. You’d be a perfect double for the king. That’s our little secret, slave. Do you understand me, slave?”
“I heard what you said.” The pent-up anger was tight in Joe’s throat.
“What’s your name, slave? You have a name, haven’t you?”
“A number.”
“No name?”
“Why should I want a name? The girl had a name, didn’t she? And look what happened to her.”
“Don’t be so gloomy. You’re alive, aren’t you? You should be thankful we didn’t let you fly off in the air spinner, too. It’s too bad that she has had a little accident—yes, very unfortunate.”
Joe’s fist shot out. He did it before he thought. A short hard punch. Thud!
The prime minister caught it on the jaw. He bounced back, stumbled and fell. The sound echoed to the corridor.
Instantly six guards were in the room helping the fallen man pick him self up, demanding to know what had happened.
Joe smeared the mud from his face, untangled his hair, and stepped back. He tightened his fists and waited for the worse. But the worst didn’t come. Nitticello was looking at him curiously and for some strange reason he turned it off as nothing.
“Nothing happened,” Nitticello said. “Just a touch of dizziness. Probably from driving in the storm. Er—back to your places, Sashes. I’ll call you if I need you.”
Joe gulped. Heavy thunder was rolling over the valley, and if he had been alone he might have indulged in reflections of his own innocence. But just now, with the strange fire of Nitticello’s eyes drilling him, he didn’t even want to be innocent. He wanted to tear Nitticello to bits.
“Bathe and put on your clean slave rags,” Nitticello said. “There’s a basement room waiting for you. When you feel friendly, call for me. I think we can do business.”
CHAPTER VI
“Slave . . . Slave . . . Are you there?”
“Pudgy!” Joe peered into the darkness. He couldn’t even see outlines of the stone walls in, this basement room. He strained at his chains. They had taken no chance with him this time but had shackled him in irons.
“Sh-sh, don’t be rattling around. I’m coming.”
Pudgy’s voice was close and intimate, as if he were right at Joe’s ear. “What have they done? Bolted you down solid?”
“My ankles,” Joe whispered. “They had a funny notion that I might walk out on them, I guess. But my hands are free. If you could bring me a file—”
“Not so fast, slave. Maybe I didn’t come to release you.”
“Oh, just a friendly visit? Now isn’t that cozy?”
“Stop your growling, slave. Do you know what is going on around this place?”
“Plenty. After what I’ve seen this afternoon, you can’t surprise me with anything.”
“Oh, can’t I?” There was mischief and intrigue in the frog-boy’s voice. “I’ll see about that. Stay right where you are till I get back.”
“Where are you going?”
“There’s a convention of frogs in the marsh.” Pudgy gave a weird little laugh.
“Stop it! Where are you going?”
“Past the king’s window. Things are buzzing in his brain. Buzzing reminds me of flies and flies remind me of dinner—”
“Are you going to eavesdrop on the king?”
“Exactly. But I’ll be back. Don’t go away.”
King Arvo Arvadello sat in his executive room, brooding. The rain had ceased. The deep darkness of night had come over the valley. He was alone.
He toyed with the heap of papers on his black marble desk. Troubles, troubles! It was an old story, he thought—a kingdom on the ragged edge of ruin; a young ruler who had no stomach for his job; and a crafty old adviser who was bleeding the kingdom for personal gain.
He glanced at the papers. Riots. Three slave owners at Redroot Hill had been murdered. The countryside was seething.
What had been done about it? Arvo shuffled the papers until he found Nitticello’s report.
“Fifty more Sashes sent to Redroot Hill to restore order.—Nitti.”
Fifty Sashes . . . Would that throw a scare into a thousand rebellious slaves? Or just antagonize them?
A later report: “Seventeen slaves beaten near Redroot Hill. Ten reported dead.”
Yes, the Sashes had gone to work.
To this report Nitticello had pencilled a comment, “Excellent. This nips the rebellion in the bud. Redroot officers recommended for special honors.—Nitti.”
Nitti had the situation in hand, of course. Nitti was running things, when you came right down to it. And he was lining his own pockets in the bargain.
And yet King Arvo knew that without Nitti he would have been at a loss for the answers. Sooner or later he always turned to Nitti for help. Nitti was always there. He had always been there, years before Arvo had become king. That was the trouble.
“Why don’t I call him in and tell him that from now on, I’ll make the decisions? Why do I keep postponing it?”
Impulsively, King Arvo touched a button. His personal attendant entered.
“Where is Nitticello at the moment?”
“He’s out on the plaza, your majesty. He was asking whether you had approved his request for honors for the Red root officers—”
“Do you have to bring that up? Pm busy.” But he had just as well give Nitti his way on that point and get it over with. “All right, tell him to go ahead and grant the honors.”
The king fancied he saw a look of pity in the attendant’s eyes. Yes, the court must have observed. It was probably common gossip that he was always yielding.
“Do you wish me to turn on the lights?” the attendant asked.
“No, nothing more.”
The attendant bowed and left.
It was pitch dark beyond Arvo’s open window. He stood there breathing in the moist night air slowly. Honors for the slave-beaters . . . Obstreperous slaves being killed the moment they became troublesome—that was Nitti’s policy. There were plenty more to be had, as Nitti always said. And all kinds.
Arvo was presently haunted by thoughts of the earth slave. His superb physique—almost a match for Arvo’s own—and his face—something like Arvo’s—and his rich, pleasing voice, strong but restrained . . . How did it feel, being a slave?
The question wedged into Arvo’s consciousness too deeply for comfort.
“Stop sympathizing,” he scolded himself. “He’s only a miserable muddy sla
ve! Probably a criminal.”
The king’s thoughts were broken by the appearance of a flaming torch, moving across the plaza . . .
When Pudgy returned to Joe’s basement prison, he reported that the whole court had assembled out on the plaza for a religious observance. The nine torch lanterns had been lighted.
“If you listen you can hear them chanting. You’ve not heard anything until you’ve heard Karridonza music. It’s even more soulful than a chorus of frogs.” Pudgy chortled. “You and I ought to be out there helping them.”
“That’s why I say. If you will get me a file—”
“But; that isn’t the real show, slave. It’s just a screen. The real show is right down there.” The frog boy took Joe’s hand and touched it to the stone floor.
Joe mumbled something to indicate his confusion. For all he knew, Pudgy may have been able to see through this stone floor. Those big ghastly green eyes of his—there was no telling what secret powers this curious creature possessed. But whatever the frog boy might mean, Joe was learning to have confidence in him.
“Give me a hand,” Pudgy was saying. “I’ve been in this cell before and I know which rock to work on. It’s this one . . . It moves. It lifts—if you have what it takes.”
Joe strained at his bonds and followed the boy’s directions. The small stones that were wedged between the larger blocks of the floor presently loosened and came out. Then Joe applied his strength to the handle-like niches. The stone budged. Together they succeeded in lifting it and setting it to one side.
Joe looked down through the square into a deep, dimly lighted room below.
“Don’t breathe,” Pudgy said “They’ll be here in a moment—Netticello and the king. Listen!”
The source of the light which filtered into the cavernous room must have been moving, for little by little it revealed a series of curving white stone stairways constructed in a fantastic pattern. They formed what appeared to be an immense funnel directly beneath Joe’s gaze. Now Joe could see the king and the prime minister as they jogged down these steps. The prime minister was carrying a lantern. They descended one tier of stairs after another, down and down, until they had reached a point about one hundred feet beneath Joe’s observation point.
The lantern was extinguished. But there was still a light—one brilliant dot of purple—coming from the very center of that deep funnel. It was a weird, far away glow coming from a point so deep, Joe thought it might have been the very center of the earth.
“Listen,” Pudgy said. He took a small rock and tossed it. If it had struck close, the two men would have heard it. But it fell through the near darkness, straight down toward the deep well of purple light.
Joe listened for several seconds. No sound returned.
“Deep,” said Pudgy. “Nobody knows how deep unless he rides through on the vine.”
Joe had heard many stories of the wonders and dangers of this mysterious phenomenon. The lavender vine! Pudgy seemed to know all about it. The two men were about to call it into action, he said. Joe’s pulses quickened.
“What kind of a thing is it? Is it something that belongs to the king?”
“It belongs to no one,” Pudgy said. “We belong to it, if anything. It’s as wild as the very lightning. No one knows when it will come or what it will bring. Or who’ll get killed by it. And not many people know where it sleeps. But I think this is its home, right down there.”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“Seen it? I was in it. I’m one of its victims. Did you think that I was born with this monstrous form?”
The words stunned Joe to silence. He had seen so many strange things in this land that he had taken Pudgy for granted. But Pudgy’s deepest feelings were betrayed by his low, quavering voice. In this moment he had revealed the secret of his life.
Within the deep curve of the funnel, the king was pronouncing magic words. Joe could hear the mysterious mumblings in a language that was certainly not Karridonzan.
The dot of purple was rising. Like the bulb of a gigantic plant, it was sprouting into a stem. Now it emerged into the wider mouth of the funnel, a twisted trunk of purple light.
The brilliance was increasing. The king and the prime minister began to back away from it, keeping a close eye on it as they ascended a few steps. From deep purple it was changing into something brighter. Soon it was as luminous as an electric arc. A brilliant lavender.
It was a live thing, Joe thought.
It was extending into branches—the thick, limp arms of a sprangling vino. The arms were silky things of light. Whether they were of flowing gases or solid substance Joe couldn’t tell.
“Seevia . . . Seevia . . . See via.”
The king had changed his chant into some sort of command. Pudgy whispered to Joe that the word meant, “creep”.
The vine was creeping, branching out into several directions over the walls of the funnel.
Several stems had ranged upward almost high enough to touch the underside of the floor through which they watched, so that Joe momentarily wondered what might happen if he, like Pudgy, were caught within its power.
Pudgy said, “Notice that the king has summoned it. But the prime minister will instruct it.”
Joe saw that one branch near the central trunk was curved like the duct of a gigantic “ear” and into this “ear” the prime minister was speaking. He was giving instructions.
“Seevia . . . Seevia . . . Seevia . . .” the king’s voice droned on ceaselessly.
Pudgy swung down through the opening in the floor and before Joe could detain him, he leaped to the branch of the lavender light which was extending toward the ceiling.
Joe saw the vine bend and twist under the weight of the frog boy. It was like a roll of lavender-colored silk—smooth, flexible and yet with a certain living quality that made it sensitive to every touch.
The two men below did not see Pudgy. The lad stole down as silent as the vine itself. Indeed, Joe was beginning to think of him as a part of this mysterious power. When he had reached the branching arm just above the “ear”, he was careful not to be observed. The prime minister was working in earnest—at what, Joe could only guess.
Many minutes later the frog boy ascended to the ceiling. He had carried out his eavesdropping expedition successfully. By taking advantage of the bending and twisting of branches, he found his way back to the opening where Joe waited.
“Nitti is telling the vine to go to the wrecked air spinner.” Pudgy was excited over the news. “He tells it to bring back anything of great value that it finds there. See how the tips of the branches are waving. It’s working. It’s spreading long stems out across the valley. It finds its way through dozens of places. That room you see opens to the cliff beyond the palace. And there are caves straight down that also lead out.”
“Can the people out in the valley see it?”
“If we were on top of the palace, we could see it streaming out in several directions.”
“Can’t you cut me loose from this anchor? I’d give my right arm for a view.”
“If you want to sacrifice a leg,” Pudgy quipped, “we might chop you loose. But don’t be impatient. The real show is here. Just wait. Wait till it brings back those jewels.”
So this was the means which Nitticello had in mind when he assured the king that those treasures could be recovered.
“Nitticello was also telling it, ‘No flesh . . . No bones’,” Pudgy said.
That was the prime minister’s concession to the king, Joe thought. The girl’s crushed body was never to be seen. The king had simply vetoed that.
“Something’s coming up the shaft,” Pudgy whispered. “You can tell by the way that main stem is trembling. It’s coming—”
Up through the central trunk, an object was being conveyed. It rose like an immense leaf in a fountain—a light-colored rectangle of some material which Joe couldn’t immediately identify—and it slid down through one of the branches and dropped with a thud at the p
rime minister’s feet.
The prime minister and the king jumped back to avoid being struck. The thing had settled solidly, however, and they approached to examine it.
“Why, it’s only the wing of the air spinner,” Nitticello said audibly. “No, no. This won’t do.” He was shouting. “Bring what is valuable! Valuable!”
The king resumed his weird antics, gesturing and chanting. “Seevia . . . Seevia. . . Seevia . . .”
CHAPTER VII
The wing of the wrecked air spinner!
It had been sheared clean, like a knife blade. Joe seemed to feel it stab right through his body. The girl—the wreck! The two men were muttering. The prime minister was damning such outrageous luck; and the king, garbling his magic words, showed plainly enough his surprise that the lavender vine had apparently failed. But as Joe watched and listened, his only thought was of Marcia Melinda.
He whispered to Pudgy. “If there’s any way to get me out of this cell, I want to go—to her. On my planet we pay respects to the dead. It’s the least I can do—for her, Can you help me get loose?”
Pudgy had an idea up his frog-skin sleeve. Again he lowered himself through the floor, holding tight to the edge with his hands. His shiny green legs kicked at the highest tongue of lavender light. His action apparently attracted it, for it waved higher. He kept teasing it as he crawled back to safety. The tip of silky lavender followed him through the opening. It snapped at him like a whip. He guided it across the floor to Joe’s chains. It jumped and waved, as flexible as a rope of silk. Pudgy brought it to Joe’s ankles. Joe could feel warm air currents as it lashed toward him. A metallic snap!—then a second—and Joe’s chains were chopped away clean! Joe, perspiring, rolled back out of reach. For a long moment he and Pudgy huddled in the comer, watching. The lavender vine began to retreat, and presently it was gone.