“I’m here,” Tae admitted as softly.
The locksmith swung around, hands tensing and loosening spasmodically. “Guards,” he explained in a word. “Danamelio’s down. The others. . . .” He shrugged to show how tenuous their fate remained.
Tae waved him quiet. The details did not matter as much as silence now.
Lador could not stop. “Flea tried to surrender. They chopped him down. They’re like wild dogs with a scent of blood.”
Tae abandoned subtlety. “Shut up, you idiot,” he returned in a hoarse whisper.
Lador fell silent. Something moved in the darkness, too big for a rat.
Tae tried to become one with the wall. Lador glanced frantically about, like a trapped animal.
Tae carved shape and movement from the blackness, identifying the creature as a cat with dark blotches on a white background. Mior? Tae dismissed the thought. Impossible.
The cat meowed suddenly, a sound eerily like an answer. Lador stiffened, whirling toward the noise.
Tae knelt, and the cat ran to him. A stench like excrement accompanied it.
“Mior?” Tae tried.
It meowed.
Tae hefted the animal. Dirt coarsened the fur, and foul-smelling muck smeared onto his hands. The dim light scarcely allowed him to distinguish slime from pigment, but the patterns looked right.
A scream ripped down the corridor. Lador loosed a startled whimper, and urgency charged through Tae as well. His heart hammered, and his palms went slick. A desperate need for action seized him.
The cat leaped from his arms. She padded into the cell, then turned as if waiting for Tae to follow.
The idea of a cat directing a man seemed ludicrous. Tae considered the wisdom of returning to the cell and pretending to have had no hand in the escape. At least, he and Lador might survive while the guards butchered the others. The insanity of the idea struck a moment later. It would do him little good to escape the guards’ slaughter for a painful execution. He stood his ground.
The cat returned, nearly to Tae’s feet, then whirled and darted back into the cell.
“Do something,” Lador whispered furiously. “You’re the leader. You’re the smart one. Do something.”
When Tae did not follow, the cat jumped up and down hissing, an unfeline gesture that more resembled human frustration.
“Shut up,” Tae growled, in as forceful a tone as whispering allowed. He watched the cat.
The cat headed toward the drainage pit, then stopped. It looked back toward Tae. Then, suddenly, it sprang into the hole.
Surprised, Tae edged back into the cell. Lador looked from Tae to the corridor multiple times, completely quiet at last.
Even as Tae approached the hole, the cat scrabbled back out again, nails clicking against stone as it fought its way through the opening. Once more, it stood in the prisoner’s cell, but Tae had drawn much closer.
“Meow!”
Tae looked doubtfully through the hole through which he had vomited and excreted over the last few days. Surely, the smell alone down there would kill him, and he could not imagine what possible good could come of trapping himself there. Yet the cat had come from there. If she was Mior, as he believed, she had begun outside. Presumably, she could find her way back to Matrinka.
A crash slammed through the corridor, and more shouts and screams followed. Tae did not waste another moment. Hands on the lip, he wriggled through the hole. Feces smeared his fingers, and the odor of stale urine gagged him. He breathed only through his mouth, tasting something bitter and undefined in the air. Ignoring it, he clawed for toeholds on the sides of the pit. He found them swiftly, then lowered himself into darkness as complete as pitch. Running water splashed and bubbled beneath him, and dampness chilled his limbs.
The cat launched herself into the hole behind him. He felt the breeze of her passage, then the thump of her landing on dry ground. Tae continued to descend carefully, choosing hand and toeholds with swift caution. His bare foot touched water, and he recoiled. Mior mewed softly to his right, and he edged a leg in her direction.
Lador’s voice reverberated through the hole. “Tae, wait. Tae!”
“Come down. Hurry up,” Tae returned in a low voice.
“I’m not sure I can fit.”
Tae did not bother with an answer. If the locksmith could not slide in, it meant leaving someone behind who might tell the guards about the route he took. It also meant certain imprisonment or death for Lador, which bothered Tae more than he expected. He had grown to like his cell mate.
The locksmith’s bulk blocked the lit hole far above Tae. He maneuvered for a few moments as Tae located the ledge supporting Mior and shifted carefully onto it. Man-built, it probably served as a way for custodians to clear debris or recover goods that might get thrown or fall through the shafts.
Then, suddenly, Lador plummeted through the opening. Tae jerked back as the locksmith sailed past, landing in the sewage water with a splash that pelted Tae with cold, wet slime.
Water churned and bubbled as Lador fought to the surface, carried downstream even as he did so. Tae cursed the darkness, sound and touch his only usable senses. Mior’s fur prickled along his calf, then she headed in the direction Lador had disappeared. Tae followed. “Hang on,” he said, trying to gauge his volume to allow Lador to hear yet not give away their location. He clung to the belief that Mior began her journey outside and he had not simply trapped himself in a hell far worse than the one he had escaped. Quickening his pace, he followed the river, alert to the roughness of the path. He did not want to join Lador in the filth-tainted water.
At length, an anemic glaze of light filtered into the tunnel. Tae pushed on, hope tingling through him though he kept it in check. Too much had gone wrong to trust in miracles now. But the light grew stronger over time, lost only to curves and bends in the deep river. He pushed onward, vision growing stronger as he went. Soon, he could make out Mior’s outline. Then, a blond head bobbed near the ledge. “Lador?” Tae rushed over, prepared for the worst. Just as he reached to pull the other toward him, a hand gripped the ledge. He stared directly into green-gray eyes. Tae grabbed the second hand as it flailed for a hold, then helped hoist the locksmith to safety.
Lador lay on the ledge coughing for several moments before managing to speak. “Thank you.”
“Sorry it took so long.” Tae felt a twinge of guilt, though darkness and circumstance had given him no means to rescue Lador prior to that moment. “Lucky you can swim.”
Lador grinned weakly. “Only a true friend could say such a thing to someone who smells like I do.”
“Who can smell where the water ends and you start,” Tae gave back. “Come on.” He extended a hand.
Lador wrapped Tae’s hand in his own soggy palm. He rose slowly, careful not to off balance Tae in the process. “Let’s go.”
They headed onward, around a bend. The light became evening grayness, gleaming over water. A grate covered the exit and, through it, Tae could see the moat surrounding Pudar’s castle.
Lador pounded on the grate, then groaned. “So close. So damned close.” He hammered a fist on the metal, and it did not so much as shudder beneath the blow.
Tae held back, letting the man more experienced at opening ways perform the examination. “Well?” he asked at length.
“Bolted well. No way for me to get out without tools. What about you?”
Tae shook his head. “If you can’t do it, I sure can’t.” He could not help adding, “I thought you could get through anything.”
“Any lock,” Lador reminded. “I’m a locksmith, not a saw.”
Tae crouched, examining the grate though he knew it would prove futile. Mior twined through his legs, fur tickling his skin, then headed back the way they had come. Solid iron spanned the opening. Though rusted and pitted with age, it had not grown weak enough for more than mild flaking. Fourteen steady bolts held it in place, their heads suggesting a span the length of Tae’s arm. He sighed. They could spend t
heir lives working on this and accomplish nothing.
The cat returned, rubbing against Tae with an attention-calling sound of impatience. Only then, he realized the holes in the mesh were too small to admit even her. The obvious jerked to understanding. This isn’t the way Mior got in.
Tae bounded to his feet, watching the calico disappear back into the darkness. “This way.” He trotted after, not bothering to see if Lador followed.
Chasing Mior, Tae reluctantly returned to the gloom he had rejoiced to leave. The cat came to him at intervals, which he appreciated. He did not dare stop to wonder how she knew to lead him in this fashion, unable to dispel the silly and superstitious fear that consideration might destroy luck he had never needed more in his difficult life. Then, suddenly, Mior disappeared.
Tae stopped, casting about for Mior and cursing his misfortune. A meow resounded hollowly above his head. Above? Tae looked up, seeing nothing in the darkness. Then Mior dropped to the stone at his feet, landing lightly on her paws. She meowed again.
Tae reached upward, feeling the edges of a shaft. The logic of the system finally reached him. All of the sanitary holes would empty into a common sewage area. To do otherwise meant digging a dozen tunnels beneath the castle. Therefore, this shaft must lead to a privy in another room. Tae raised his head instinctively, though his vision failed him completely. Unless this led to another room in the dungeon, it meant a long and treacherous climb to an upper level, one he doubted Mior or Lador could make.
Attention still focused upward, Tae lifted Mior. She settled onto his shoulders, as she so often did for Matrinka. “Can you climb?”
Lador touched Tae’s arm to locate himself. “Better than most, I suppose. Nothing spectacular.” The truth dawned on him then. “Are we going back up?”
“Further this time, I hope. Can you make it?”
Lador paused, as if inspecting the grade and distance, through the lightless interior. “I doubt it.” He sighed. “No. Can you?”
“Yes,” Tae responded, not allowing himself to doubt. He had only a vague idea of what such a climb would entail, but he could not afford to fail now. Surely, it would not prove more difficult than the sage’s tower; yet, then, he had had spikes, claws, and pitons. This time, he would rely solely on his grip and personal skill. “I’ll find a way to get you up when I get to the top.”
Lador fell silent. Arguing would prove as fruitless as skepticism; it could only undermine Tae’s chances. He squeezed Tae’s arm, indicating faith in his ability, though the fear came through as well. Believing Tae would find a way to hoist him out, or take the time to do so, surely strained his trust to its limit. Still, he had little choice but to wait patiently and accept Tae’s loyalty.
Without further explanation, Tae gripped the lip of the hole and swung his feet into position on the wall. The crude stone construction afforded him myriad finger and toeholds. He climbed. Accustomed to the stench, he scarcely noticed it. Attentive to balance and grip, he dared not pause to wonder about the slime that slicked the stone. His mind pictured greenish algae, and he allowed the delusion. To ponder long might make him sick or miss a step. He hoped Lador had moved aside so that a fall would not prove fatal for both of them. Tae stole a moment to wonder whose fate would be worse: the climber killed as he struck solid stone or the locksmith stuck wandering the dark sewer until the guards found him.
The image dizzied him, and he forced it away. Instead, he concentrated on each upward movement of hand or foot. The ragged stone bit into the sensitive tips of his fingers and toes. Blood trickled across his right palm, warm and slick. He concentrated on the concept of “up” until it became a solid picture in his mind. Nothing else mattered but the constant progression of hand over hand, foot over foot.
Tae forgot about the passage of time, about how far below him Lador now was. The weight of the cat on his shoulders ached through the muscles of his back, but he did not waste concentration wondering how Matrinka handled the calico for hours and days at a time. If he reached the top, he lived. If he fell, he died. Nothing else in the world mattered right now.
Gradually, Tae discerned a light above him, closer than he expected. A circle of corresponding brightness appeared as a ring nearly as perfect as the full moon, though far less bright. Indulging a mild smile, Tae dragged himself upward. Three more holds, grabbed more swiftly than in the past, brought him nearly to the top. He lunged for freedom. His hand missed the opening, fingers scraping stone then plowing through muck without substance. For an instant, nothing supported him. He desperately threw his weight onto his remaining limbs. Unable to support the sudden shift, one foot slipped free. Vertigo assailed him. He felt himself spiraling downward in the moment before it almost became a reality. His loose hand scrambled for a hold, catching one just as his other foot failed. Gritting his teeth, he clung with only his hands. Tears mingled with the sweat on his face.
Tae’s arms ached, but the pain lost meaning beneath need. Cautiously, he groped for the best toeholds he could find. His fingers trembled, threatening to give out. He worked faster, gradually finding the ledges he needed. More carefully, he pulled himself to the opening and out.
The cat sprang free as Tae lay gasping on the floor. The urge to holler with joy could not have been satisfied physically even could he have risked the noise. For longer than was safe or appropriate, he remained on the floor. Only after several moments of reveling in this temporary safety did it finally occur to him that he had no idea where he was or how to escape. For all he knew, Pudarian nobles might stand surrounding him, waiting for him to move.
Tae managed a quick assessment of the room. He was alone in a small chamber that contained only the hole through which he had climbed and a cushion padding the area around it. A single doorway led into another room, and he could only glimpse its interior. With a deep sigh, he rose and brushed off the worst of the clinging grime. He might need his hands relatively clean, though for what he did not know. He hoped he would not need to fight. Like his father, his power lay in quickness, cleverness, and knowledge, not brute strength. Quietly, he rose, hands no longer shaking. He crept to the entryway and peered into the other room.
A person slept on a canopied bed, features lost beneath the light covers. A robe trimmed with fur hung from one of the posts. A bureau occupied the space along one wall, and a wardrobe stood along another. Beneath an open window lay a long table covered with painted, wooden soldiers in the midst of a fierce battle. A bookshelf held an assortment of texts. A closed door and the entryway through which he had come served as the only exits. Tae slipped into the room, gaze locked on the sleeping figure. By its shape, the other appeared male, and the cut of his robe confirmed the assessment. He breathed deeply and with regularity, definitely asleep.
Keeping an ear tuned toward the sleeper at all times, Tae assessed other parts of the room. Gauzy curtains fluttered in a thin breeze, which, thankfully, blew Tae’s stench away from the sleeper. Tae approached cautiously, peering outside. Six stories below him, the courtyard spread like a map, its green blanket of grass interrupted by stone benches and flower gardens at intervals. Moonlight glittered from the distant moat, occasionally catching glints of armor from guards below. Tae studied their movements, defining patterns. For all he and Lador had gone through, freedom still remained beyond their grasp. Thoughts of his companion reminded him of his promise. His eyes swept the miniature battle as he turned to work on a solution to the locksmith’s problem. That glimpse registered enough details for him to recognize the Great War, the one the Westerners called the War of Silver Wolves. Longer than three centuries ago, the Eastlands had warred with the West, and Tae’s people had nearly lost every man to it.
Tae examined the sleeper once more. But though he stirred a few times, perhaps catching Tae’s scent as the breeze momentarily faded, he did not wake but only buried his face deeper in the covers. Tae headed for the bureau. Seizing a drawer, he edged it open, eyes fixed on the owner of the room and fingers testing for resistance,
that momentary hesitancy of the wood that might herald a thump or squeak. Well constructed and well oiled, the drawer made no sound. Tae glanced at the contents: britches and breeks dyed in a rainbow of hues. Hurriedly, he knotted them together, passing up silk for more solid materials. Although he did not know how far he had climbed, he estimated, by the distance to the courtyard from the window, making his clothing rope longer than he believed necessary. Seeking ballast, he headed for the bookshelf. He found it before he arrived in the form of boots standing neatly at the foot of the bed. Selecting one, he tied it to the end of the rope and headed back toward the sewer hole.
Tae’s eyes swept the titles as he passed. For all of Weile’s insistence on Tae learning on the streets, he had placed equal merit on study. He had found tutors and books for most of the world’s languages, verbal and written, emphasizing the need for understanding everyone. Much of interest could be learned from those who believed themselves impossible to overhear. The books all held titles in either the Western or common trading tongue. Aside from some general texts on the bottom shelf, every one held some relationship to the Great War. Some fascination. Tae looped the farthest end of the clothing chain to the leg of the armoire, knotting it securely.
Tae continued into the small room without dwelling on his observations, but some of the titles registered in his mind even without concentration. One, thinner than most, had borne Colbey Calistinsson’s name as part of its title. This held little fascination for Tae personally, but he knew Kevral would find it enthralling and, hopefully, the one who delivered it to her as well. He cared deeply for Kevral, and that was his main reason for assisting the party after they had abandoned him. One way or another, he would win her affection.
Tae stood at the mouth of the hole, glancing in, but he saw nothing. A call down, even soft, might echo intolerably. Hoping Lador had enough sense to stand aside while waiting, Tae tossed down the boot-weighted rope, listening carefully to the hissing sound of the cloth followed by the muffled splash of the boot hitting bottom. Less than a second passed before the line of breeks quivered then shifted. The makeshift rope jerked and swayed as Lador worked his way upward.
Beyond Ragnarok Page 54