The Fantasy MEGAPACK ®

by Lester Del Rey

  Morrien thrust his face toward the sweating countenance of the aide. “A ghost can’t take things. What you have is a garden variety thief.” The aide cleared his throat uncomfortably, started to say something, then seemed to think better of it.

  “What is it, man?” Morrien slapped his open palm gently with his leather gauntlets.

  “It’s something they don’t know how to fight. It disappears.”

  “I’ll send Dant, my Third. He’d like to make points while Kyren is off trying to squeeze some assistance out of the neighboring villages—not an errand likely to be successful, but one that’s necessary for a dwindling army.”

  * * * *

  Riska became aware of the large, loud-voiced, red-faced Dant, though not by rank or name, as she continued her raids on Morrien’s camp. The more she saw Dant roaring and stamping his frustrated rage, the more often she scavenged through the camp, sometimes even when she had a surfeit of food piled in her home chamber. When pursued she disappeared into a burrow or crevice in the rocks, only to appear to others on the other side of the encampment.

  One night she crept boldly toward Dant’s tent. Stealthily she slipped inside, lulled by raucous snoring sounds. She knelt, not breathing, her thief-clever hands busy, then she sneaked out again, zigzagging to avoid patches of moonlight. As she slid toward cover she stopped long enough to give a sleeping soldier a sharp kick. His howl of pain aroused the camp and when Riska should have been running toward her exit, a shadowy cleft in the rocks, she crouched behind a tree, watching.

  With a bellow Dant came pounding from his tent. Before he had fully emerged, the rope she had tied from his leg to the pole structure that supported the tent brought tent and man down together in a satisfying cursing, struggling mass. She fled for her escape hatch and slid to a stop when she saw that it was guarded. She wheeled and made a dash toward another opening she knew, but it was too far and all the camp was now alerted. She ran well, dodging and wheeling, but was caught at last, crushed down into the dirt under two or three heavy bodies. For the second time in her life she felt real fear and not just exhilaration.

  * * * *

  Riska awoke to darkness, her limbs bent back awkwardly. As she ran her tongue across dry lips she felt the lower one split and swollen. Her captors must have been a little over-enthusiastic. Still, except for being tied, she felt strong enough to run if need be. She rubbed her head against the ground, trying to dislodge the blindfold, but made little progress. Then she lay listening, for footsteps and voices were coming. “I had it put in my tent for the time being.”

  “It’s human, not a spirit, believe me. Only a human would have the maliciousness to—”

  Riska heard the other man laugh.

  “You wouldn’t find it so humorous, Kyren, if we discovered an Ultebren spy in our midst.”

  “Spies don’t waste their time on schoolboy tricks.”

  Their voices were above her now and light made her eyes water as the blindfold was taken off. She recognized the red-faced Dant but not the man who was with him. He had tightly curled hair graduated in color from black to smoke to silver, and a small pointed beard. She didn’t like the look of cold intelligence in his eyes.

  “A spy, a spy for Amery of Ultebrel! The crest, man, the crest.” Riska wore a leather tabard with the crest of Ultebren royalty worked into it.

  “Put him to torture. We’ll have out his secrets!”

  Kyren’s thin hand gripped her face and turned it into the lanternlight. “Ah no,” he said. “Is that possible?” He jerked loose the ties on one side of the tabard and slid his hand inside. “Your spy is…a woman. No mistake.”

  Dant cursed without taking a breath for some moments.

  “Where did you get the garment you wear?” Kyren demanded.

  She looked down where his hand still moved lazily beneath the tabard. “Haven’t you proved yet what you wanted to know?” She writhed a little as his fingers closed on a tender spot. Blinked back the pain. “I stole it. Up until four months ago I was a thief in Ultebre.”

  He leaned back, releasing her. “So you know a way into Ultebre’s fortress, eh?”

  “Then she’s no real danger to us,” said Dant. We’ll give her to the men. There aren’t enough women here as it is and what there are resemble hags. This one is at least young, if lacking in beauty.”

  “And feminine graces,” said Kyren. “But we haven’t solved all the mysteries. When we searched the opening in the rock through which she meant to escape, we found a series of tunnels all of which led back to the entrance again. No one could escape by this, yet she has always escaped until now.”

  Riska struggled to sit up. “If you promise to release me, I’ll show you the secret of the caverns.”

  Dant moved to untie her.

  “No. I for one don’t want to follow her into those uncertain darknesses by night. Perhaps tomorrow.”

  “You’re afraid?” asked Dant so bluntly that Riska wondered how someone with such a loose mouth had lived long enough to rise so high. Kyren favored him with an arrogant look that he didn’t half understand, though Riska understood fully and feared for him.

  Morning found her totally numb in arms and legs from being bound so tightly all night. No chance to run now, but she thought eagerly of her caverns. Once in their winding darknesses, she was master and she would find a way to repay. She was released and hauled to her feet—but without any feeling left in them, it was hard to stand. “I’ll find a way to repay,” she thought as she was cuffed and dragged to her feet again and thrust out of the tent. Dant was waiting outside and gave her a vicious look, evidently remembering that she had been the one to humiliate him.

  “Do we have to go back to the caves?” she whined for his benefit. “I’m half dead with weariness, having spent most of the night showing all their secret ways, how to come and go like a ghost in the night.”

  “Kyren, that traitor.…”

  “He was especially pleased that there is a hidden way into the heart of Ultebre itself so I pointed it out to him.”

  “He’ll be off to Morrien with this news, branding me an incompetent.”

  “Not an incompetent, sir—fool, he said.”

  Dant’s yeasty face seemed to swell in a ferment of anger.

  And at that moment Kyren appeared cool and unsuspecting. Innocent, of this at any rate.

  Dant pulled his sword from its sheath with a sinister scraping sound. “Fool, is it? You dared to laugh at my misfortune this past night and you would say me ill with Morrien, as you always have.” For a moment Kyren looked surprised and Riska held her breath, afraid that ophic intelligence would strike quickly to the real cause of the quarrel. But he was a fighting man, among other men, and with a sword drawn against him. He had no other choice.

  The fight lasted longer than she thought it would. She began to see why Dant had gone so high. He was a headlong, dangerous fighter. However, the outcome was no different than she had expected. Kyren looked at the sprawled body with an insolent gaze and called for a cloth to wipe his sword. He cleaned it fastidiously, taking his time. She shifted from foot to foot, testing. The guard still held her by the arm, but rather loosely, his attention being grasped by the fight and now by the body of Dant. She sank her teeth into the soldier’s hand. As he shouted, she twisted away, but he had a better hold than she thought and she came up hard, nearly falling.

  Kyren now approached, shaking his head. She saw, with some disquiet, that he had neglected to sheathe his sword. “You betray yourself,” he said, placing the edge hard against her throat and pressing it, delicately. “Dant was a fool, but in his way he was a good man and in that way, I respected him. You thought him a tool, to be used and discarded. And you didn’t hesitate. Am I right?” She nodded, feeling the sword edge break the skin. If she lived, and he was fool enough to enter the caves
—

  He swung the weapon away, sheathed it. “You’d be dead by now if you didn’t have some secret knowledge of how to enter Ultebre by stealth. Don’t congratulate yourself. I’ll have all your knowledge by sunset, and if you’re lucky, you’ll have your life. I can’t promise any more than that, as you seem somewhat stubborn.”

  “It isn’t something I can tell. I’d have to show you. I’m willing to go with my hands tied, blindfolded, if there’s so much to be frightened of.”

  “You almost convince me, but Morrien himself is on his way; he’ll be here by tomorrow. I prefer to wait for him. Tie her tightly. If you or any other man on guard duty gets lonely, remember that she’s at your disposal.”

  “If this is important to you, and it seems to be, you’d do better not to bait and anger me. I can be stubborn, and I might manage to die without speaking.

  “You take each small advantage and squeeze it dry, don’t you, advancing yourself with every turn. If I can believe my ears now, the prisoner is setting the terms of her own captivity.” She believed that he was as near to breaking out into overt violence as he would ever come; so wisely, she fell silent. She was pleased when she was taken to a tent and left inside unbound. Nor must her guard have felt any loneliness through the long afternoon. Morrien was conducted to the prisoner’s tent by an uncharacteristically shaken Kyren.

  “This is just a girl,” said Morrien. “After all you’ve told me, I expected an ogre, at least.” The prisoner looked up from where she sat on the ground.

  “Get up,” shouted Kyren, aiming a kick in her direction, which she avoided and rose lithely. She was not as tall as Morrien, but she was tall, long of limb and appeared to have a wiry strength unbecoming in a woman, to his way of thinking.

  “I’m told you know of hidden ways into Ultebre’s citadel. That you stole a garment from Amery’s palace.”

  “I keep telling them so; and I keep offering to guide you, freely, yet all I get are threats of violence and torture.” Though dark hair hung down raggedly over one eye and her mouth had a hard, sullen look to it, he could not believe all that Kyren said of her. She seemed helpless rather than ravening.

  “Has she so offered?” Kyren looked down, muttered, “Yes. But I don’t trust her and you shouldn’t either. I think of Dant.”

  “If the thing was done as you say, it was cleverly done. I could admire such cleverness.” The prisoner cast a triumphant glance at Kyren and warmed visibly to Morrien. He was a pleasant sight, his thick hair and beard the color of bronze, his face strongly beautiful, his heavy travel cloak adding to the width of his shoulders.

  “How do you come to know these warrens?”

  “They’re my home. My grandfather discovered their secrets and my father taught me all there is to be known of the cavernways, No one knows who built them; they were ancient in the time of my grandfather. We used them for our own purposes.”

  “Thievery.”

  “What could be more convenient? Routes of egress opening at all points in the city, out of sewers and drains, alleyways and cisterns; there are even many passageways opening inside buildings.”

  “Inside the palace of my cousin Amery and the dwelling of Jos’l, his minister. I’d like to burst in on them at this moment as they gloat over expelling me from my rightful fiefdom. Amery acted as my friend while Jos’l subverted the army, bribing, and killing those who would not be bribed. When I escaped with what ragtag of an army I could keep about me, Amery captured Llana, my wife-to-be, tortured and killed her when he found her loyalty could not be bartered. I have a lot to thank those two for when we meet face to face, and perhaps now there’s a chance we will.”

  “If you mean to kill Jos’l I’ll be well satisfied. He’s the one that signed the order—” her voice grew weak to inaudibility. By an effort she went on. “There were never enough women in the tunnels to satisfy the band of thieves my father had gathered, so the custom was to carry off women from Ultebre. But one managed to find her way back and a trap was laid. They caught all but me and a young apprentice thief who returned to his home in an outlying village. You know Jos’l’s punishment for thievery.”

  “Impalement.”

  She bit her lip. “I watched from one of our secret egresses. I don’t know why. I watched but there was nothing I could do.” She shuddered and for all her efforts to control them, tears began sliding from her eyes. She turned away and wiped her face with the back of her hand as if she had done something shameful, then turned back to finish the story. “They guard many of the entrance ways now, though they can’t penetrate deeply into them. Only I know all the turnings and a certain secret which I will show to your man, presently. I turned to the open country for survival, for I was alone and had no heart to return to the city.”

  “A sad story,” said Kyren dryly, “if true. I’m willing to test the truth of this for you by various means of ‘persuasion’ which I know.”

  “I believe her,” said Morrien, “and I don’t think I’m over-trusting.”

  “If he doesn’t believe it, let him accompany me into the caverns,” said Riska.

  Kyren hesitated. His cool intelligence said no, but pride struggled not to let himself admit that for some reason he feared to go with her. “Very well,” he said grudgingly, “but I will take two of my best soldiers as well. And as you once agreed, you will be bound and blindfolded.”

  They entered a cleft in the rock. Blindfolded, Riska stumbled against a lichenous protrusion in the wall. Her cursing masked the low rumble of rock panels moving aside on metal tracks. “If you insist on my being blindfolded, at least see that I don’t break my neck,” she protested. They followed a narrow channel that had reportedly only circled back upon itself, yet this seemed straight enough. Cool air blew through the cavernways; it did not have the usual close dampness of a true cave. After a while Kyren noticed that the walls were smooth as if the builders no longer cared to camouflage the fact that these passageways seemed melted out of the rock.

  “Who could have made these? Was there no clue?”

  “My grandfather who discovered them said that the builders left nothing, except the result of their handiwork and the central core of the present city of Ultebre. Though sometimes I have searched these caverns for something they might have left behind.”

  “Perhaps as well they don’t return, if they are as skilled in magic as this indicates.”

  They traveled for long hours through the tunnels. Kyren had no idea of where he might be when Riska cautioned him to quietness. The way led sharply upward. Riska must have done something, he wasn’t sure what, because a door slid back in what looked like solid stone. Then they were climbing some winding stairs in what looked like a cellar half filled with rubble. A slot let through a spangle of outerworld light and Kyren set his eyes to it, unsure. Tall, fluted pillars held the roof up grandly and the walls rippled with lush tapestries, all worked in battle scenes in which the Ultebren crest was prominently displayed.

  “The palace itself!” said Kyren, in his excitement forgetting himself and pulling her close. “Is there a way to enter?”

  “Yes. I don’t know whether or not it was discovered. We seldom used it because there were so many guards in the palace.”

  “If an army broke through here—and at other strategic spots in the city.… Let’s go back. Morrien must know.”

  At some point in the unrelieved darkness, Kyren saw Riska bound ahead, disappearing around a sharp turn in the tunnel. He shouted to his soldiers to pursue; but beyond the turn, the cavern seemed to take a different direction than before, though Kyren couldn’t be sure, having negotiated it but once. No sign of her ahead in the dimness, and now other openings were appearing to right and left.

  A soldier dared say what Kyren would not. “We’re lost.”

  “She waited. The she-vulture waited until she had me in her ha
nds. I’ll be your guide willingly, she said and must have laughed to herself in the saying.” They wandered together in darkness. After a certain length of time it was no longer a seeking out of the right route but a shambling in blind despair. Trickles of water that seeped through the walls and down onto the floor quenched their thirst, but even the drive for survival withered against cool smooth stone, echoing silence and everlasting darkness. “She’s buried us alive,” said Kyren, as his thoughts circled endlessly in dreams of sound and light. “She simply walked off and left us here without a further thought, without any idea of mercy.”

  “She’s but a semblance of a woman over the soul of a wolf-bitch,” said a soldier ruefully as he scooped up tepid water from a runnel in the floor.

  “I wonder what exquisite lie she’ll tell Morrien.”

  “You think she’ll go back there?”

  “You should have seen her with Morrien. If ever bitch-wolf craved a master—”

  “So much the worse for him if he’s been chosen. But that changes nothing for us.”

  Images of the grave tormented Kyren as even his anger banked and all but went out. They huddled in a cul-de-sac in the rocks, their strength having given out. One of their number had fallen into delirium. Kyren wondered idly, “If one of us dies before the others—”

  A vision came to him of peeling a strip of flesh off a human thigh, of putting it to his lips. He groaned audibly and did not dare to put the obscene idea into words. But if one grew very hungry—the idea taunted him. He grew a little weaker from the mental conflict. His head drooped to his knees as if his skull were a heavy pod on a thin reed, drying toward autumn. The air that drifted through was cool, the silence complete. He did not know how long she had been standing there. It didn’t seem to matter, for he was too weak to try to kill her even if he could remember what he wanted to kill her for. She drew near; her hair and clothing held the smells of sunlight and vegetation; there was a slip of something green caught on her trousers. Like a baby he reached toward it.