by Unknown
Illya nodded reluctantly, and lifted his light. "Further up and further in, then," he said resignedly.
"Further up and further in," Napoleon agreed.
* * *
There were no more chalk marks on the walls for a goodly distance. Then another white arrow turned them into a side path which ran along level for a ways and then turned down again.
Napoleon stood at the top of the incline and looked down. Illya stopped behind him. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing, really," said his partner. "Just that I've put so much energy into climbing this far, I hate to waste it by climbing down again."
"All right," said Illya. "You wait here, and if I ever get out, I'll send a rescue party for you."
"Never mind, never mind. It was just a thought."
They started down the steeply slanting tunnel, feet skidding slightly on the uneven floor. The tunnel leveled off then, and both of them stopped together, shining their lights ahead.
The floor of the tunnel rose sharply, but the ceiling didn't rise away from it. There was a mound of rubble which completely filled the tunnel—rubble impossible to date, other than by the fact that there was no dust in the air. It could have been there six hours, or two hundred years.
"I hope he made it back from the village before that happened," said Napoleon.
"Well," said Illya, "at least we know the white chalk isn't Zoltan's."
"Unless there's another passage we've overlooked."
"Wishful thinking. Come on, back up to the main tunnel."
* * *
The main tunnel continued to rise, wider now and with a paved floor. In the yellow light from their electric lanterns they could see smoke stains on the ceiling, and even occasional brackets that looked as if they had once held torches.
"Ah," said Napoleon. "Signs of civilization."
"We may be getting close to the inhabited parts of the castle," Illya murmured. "Let's cut back to one light."
He cut his off, and the darkness moved a little closer.
Eventually the passage grew inexplicably narrower, and then they turned a tight corner and the walls fell away on either side and disappeared. Suddenly they were in a room—a room of unguessable extent. Napoleon's flash found heavy carved beams ten or fifteen feet overhead, and a wall perhaps thirty feet away to their left. The rest was darkness.
He cast the light behind them for a moment, and saw they had come out of a narrow doorway between two great pairs of wooden trestles on which rested barrels of something—probably wine. Dust was heavy on the barrels, and so deep on the floor that it muffled their footsteps. No one had come that way for more years than he would care to contemplate.
Illya flicked his light on, and send it off into the darkness of the wine cellar. "Well," he whispered, "we're inside. Now what?"
"I guess we just keep looking," said Napoleon.
"What for?"
"I'll let you know when I see it."
They stayed close to the wall, and worked their way along to another door, oak-beamed and barred. It opened into another passage, which led to a flight of stone steps—leading down.
At the bottom of the stairs they found themselves in another room. The room was small, but as their lights traversed the walls, Napoleon felt his neck prickle. They were lined with plaques, each bearing a name and two dates. Some of them had small portraits engraved upon them.
Illya spoke first. "Is this what we were looking for?"
Napoleon shook his head slowly. "I don't think so. There's nothing here of vital interest to us. There probably isn't even another way out." He scanned his light around the walls, slowly. The spot of light slid over the tarnished squares of metal to the far wall, and traversed it slowly. Then it stopped on something large and black. Instantly Illya's light swung to join it.
Twenty yards away across the floor a black drapery hung from the low ceiling. It spread as it fell, and formed a canopy around a stone dais. And on the dais rested a black coffin. Though dust was thick through the rest of the room, not a speck marred the dull surface of that sinister box—it looked as though it were polished daily.
On the side of the coffin a large medallion bore the Stobolzny arms, which Napoleon recognized from his researches. The spotlights centered on it and stopped. Even from this distance they could see that the lid of the coffin was slightly ajar.
"That one looks opened," said Napoleon carefully.
"That's right," said Illya. "It looks open."
Each glanced at the other, and neither said anything else for a long moment.
Finally Napoleon said, "Well! Let's...let's go take a look at it."
Illya considered this. "You take a look at it," he said. "I'll guard the door."
Napoleon managed a slight smile, and started hesitantly towards the coffin. It seemed to be quite a distance from Illya and the other light, but he walked boldly the twenty-five paces across the musty, silent, dust-shrouded tomb to the low stone dais where it lay.
At last he stood beside it.
"Illya..."
"Yes?" Illya's voice seemed distant, and more muffled than sixty feet should have accounted for.
"It is open." He ran his light slowly over the lid, and stopped it on the plaque. "It says Voivode Tsepesh Drakula-Stobolzny -- 1671...Uh...there's no date of death here."
"Remember, Napoleon, his body was never found."
"I remember." He paused. "I wonder who used this coffin?"
"Why don't you look and see?" Illya suggested.
Napoleon glanced over his shoulder. His partner was still close to the door. He turned back towards the coffin, and the faintest of smiles might have danced momentarily across his lips. "All right," he said. "I will."
The lid was loose, and he shifted his flashlight to a more convenient grip. He slipped his fingertips under the edge of the lid and lifted. There was a blood-chilling groan from the concealed hinges and the ponderous slab of wood swung back and thumped down on a rest with a deep BOOM which echoed through the chamber for many seconds.
Napoleon had jumped back automatically as the lid had come up in his grip, as easily as if it had been counterbalanced. But as nothing burst out of the dark recesses of the coffin at him, he quickly recovered his balance. He lifted the light to shine over the edge and peered hesitantly in.
"Well?" said Illya impatiently.
"The coffin is empty," said Napoleon slowly, looking into the box. The red satin lining was as bright as if new, but there were smudges of something at the foot end—they looked like dried mud—and stains of something brown and slightly crusted near the head end. While he was looking, Napoleon kept speaking.
"Not exactly empty," he said slowly. "There's a layer of dirt in the bottom of the casket, and what looks like the impression of a body in it...."
He glanced over his shoulder to see the effect this was having on Illya, and continued: "Wait a minute...here's a piece of paper, with something written on it." He pretended to pick something out of the empty coffin. "It says...Out to Lunch??"
Illya grimaced in exasperation. "Napoleon," he said very patiently, "is there anything there or isn't there?"
Napoleon smiled briefly. "No, not really. I just thought we were being awfully serious about this. After all, here we are, two grown men skulking about in somebody's cellar, as nervous as little boys playing in a haunted house. I decided it was time to break the mood."
Illya was silent for a moment, as Napoleon came back across the vault towards him. Then he glanced at the coffin. "Aren't you going to close the lid again? We wouldn't want anyone to know we'd been here."
Napoleon took an automatic step back towards the coffin, then turned to Illya. "I just finished saying there's nothing..."
"Somebody has been dusting it," said Illya mildly, and Napoleon stopped in mid-sentence. His face changed as he thought about that, then without another word he walked quietly back across the chamber, reached over the coffin, pulled the lid towards him, and let it down gently. Then he came
back to the door.
"Now are you happy?"
"Deliriously. Now can we return to looking for a way out of here?"
Napoleon was reluctant. "Our original purpose in this little invasion of privacy was to find out if someone was using this castle for something, or someone was staying here, or something."
"Well, we've found out."
"What?"
"Something," said Illya. "Now let's go. It's well after midnight, and..."
A sharp and strangely familiar whistling note sounded within the chamber, and echoed from the heavy stone walls. It was several seconds before they recognized it, and Napoleon reached for his communicator. It seemed so out of place in this dark medieval chamber that he stared at it for a few seconds as if he'd never seen it before. Then he pulled up the antenna and said, "Solo here."
"Good morning, Mr. Solo," said the familiar voice of Alexander Waverly. "I hoped you would still be up at this hour. I've been looking for an interim report from you. What have you accomplished so far?"
"Well, it's...kind of hard to say, sir. We don't exactly have any concrete results, but we feel we're making progress."
"Hmph. Have you found any evidence of what killed Endros?"
Napoleon and Illya looked at each other. Illya nodded intently, but Napoleon thought about it for a minute. "Ah...not exactly, sir. The...ah...the situation here is—sort of unusual."
"Where are you at the moment? Your signal is weak, and your voice sounds as if you were in a cave."
"Well, we are...sort of in a cellar, you might say."
"Prisoners?"
"Uh, no—more like trespassers, actually."
"I hope you have a good reason. Remember, you're supposed to be investigating Endros' death. Have you any clue as to his slayer?"
"Not yet, sir, but we're working on it."
"I have no doubt of that." Was there the slightest touch of sarcasm in their superior's voice? "It's a good thing I have a great deal of faith in you and Mr. Kuryakin—it is often strained but usually justified. I expect you to maintain your record. Good night."
"Good night, sir," said Napoleon.
Chapter 11: "There Must Be A Logical, Rational Explanation."
Somehow the voice of their superior officer had come at just the right time, and said just the right things. As Napoleon tucked the transceiver away, he glanced around the little vault. Now it seemed almost cozy; a quiet, peaceful cave where ancient remains could molder away the centuries after lifetimes of toil and sorrow.
He looked at Illya, and shrugged. "You're right. We may as well go home. This ridiculous situation must have affected our minds. For a while there I'd forgotten there must be a logical, rational explanation for all the things that have been happening."
"Yes," said Illya. "Let's just hold that thought while we get out of here."
Napoleon nodded.
Soon they were back in the wine cellar. The darkness beyond the range of the lights began to prey on Napoleon's nerves again as they crossed the dust-carpeted floor, but the relatively comforting stone walls of the tunnel eased his tight back muscles a little.
Suddenly he stopped. "Illya," he said. "I just realized we have been going about this all wrong."
The Russian raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yes," said Napoleon. "We know this rabbit warren opens somewhere into the outside world. Therefore there should be a current of air blowing towards this opening. All we have to do is follow it, and it'll lead us back to safety."
"Brilliant, Napoleon. Now tell me, which way is the air current blowing now?"
Napoleon looked around. The air was perfectly still, as nearly as he could tell. He frowned, then reached into his pocket and smiled. He pulled out his cigarette lighter and struck it. The flame rose bright yellow, and stood perfectly steady. He looked at it with a betrayed expression.
"Well, in the book it said..."
"Don't worry, Napoleon. Maybe there will be an air current farther along."
"But it said...Oh, never mind." He closed the lighter and dropped it back in his coat pocket, and then walked down the passage after Illya, thinking hard.
* * *
A long time later he stopped and looked around quickly. Something very faint and chill had brushed ever so softly over the back of his neck, and he didn't think it was nerves. "Illya..." he said.
The Russian stopped, and looked around.
"Watch." Napoleon pulled out his lighter and struck it again. The flame sprang out, and this time it flickered. It danced agilely and the tip of it pointed in the direction ahead of them.
He smiled happily. "See?" he said. "Air currents. What did I tell you?"
"That's nice," said Illya, "but we were already going that way. Why not save it for times when we come to an intersection and can't decide? I'm sure it would be more dependable than flipping a coin."
Napoleon didn't say anything as he put his lighter away. Apparently hearing from Waverly didn't affect Illya quite as salubriously as himself; his partner still seemed edgy. He shrugged it off; he hadn't been perfectly cool all evening himself.
They continued down the corridor at a steady pace. The stone floor angled down gently, and only occasional small tunnels branched off to the sides. The air continued to caress the backs of Napoleon's ears. At last the tunnel narrowed and branched, and the cigarette lighter was called into service once more.
Five more times in the next half-hour the lighter sparked and caught the gentle drift of air directing them to the exit. And then at last they could smell wet vegetation, and the air grew colder around them.
The walls of the tunnel drew in closer and became rough stone; the roof became lower until they had to stoop.
Then leaves whispered under their feet, they ducked around one last projection of rock, and there was a wind again, and all the night of the forest was around them. Napoleon stood up very straight and stretched his arms.
"Oh! That feels good!"
"Don't be too relieved, Napoleon," said Illya. "We're not out of the woods yet."
Napoleon froze, and looked quizzically at Illya.
"This isn't the entrance we went in by. We still have to make our way through the forest and out the other side to the village." Illya looked around and shook his head. "For all I know, we may have come out on the other side of the mountain from Pokol."
Napoleon glanced at the sky and nodded. "And this overcast very effectively prevents celestial navigation." He shrugged. "Let's find a tree and see which side of it is mossy."
"That may not be a bad idea. If it's the side away from the mountain, we'll know the village is ahead of us. If it's the side towards the mountain..."
"We look for road and try to hitch a ride. Let's worry about that after we check for moss. And Illya—in the future, remind me to bring a compass."
The first tree they examined had no moss on it; the second had moss all around. The third had moss on one side, the fourth on the other. Illya finally looked at Napoleon with an expression of infinite patience. "What else did you learn in the Boy Scouts?"
"I can start a fire by rubbing two matches together, treat snakebite, and hot-wire a car. I belonged to a very progressive troop."
"Forget I asked. If we walk downhill long enough, we'll probably come to a road of some kind, and following that will lead us to some form of civilization."
They set off downhill. The ground was soft and damp, as though it had rained earlier that evening, and it stuck to their feet. The air was icy cold—not quite freezing, but nearly. Higher on the mountain the ground would have been crusted with rime. The fog moved in on them as they descended, and soon white fingers were writhing around the dark tree-trunks in the beam of the flash. Illya's was weakening, after a full night of use, and they were about to switch over to Napoleon's when they struck a path at last.
It ran along the hillside, which had leveled off a short time before. Illya looked both ways on it, and frowned. "We're still lost," he said. "One way will lead downhill, the
other will lead up."
"We'll split up," said Napoleon. "You go right and I'll go left, and we'll keep in touch with the transceivers. When the path starts to go down, give a call to the other end and we'll be off on the road to Pokol."
Illya nodded. "Why didn't we think of giving one of the transceivers to Hilda or Zoltan?" he asked suddenly. "Think of all the trouble that could've saved us."
"Why don't you ever get these great ideas when they'll do us some good?"
Illya sighed. "But that would take all the challenge out of life," he said.
* * *
Napoleon's chosen path wound among widely spaced trees which rose up out of sight into the mist. The woods seemed terribly silent, as if the trees were holding their breath, waiting for something to happen. His feet made no sound as they sank into the damp dirt of the forest floor. The yellow cone of light from his lantern stood out through the mist and swept soundlessly over the trees and bushes and the bare earth of the path he was following.
Then the air began to move about him, and the trees began to whisper and mutter to themselves, as a strange directionless wind moved down among them. It stirred Napoleon's hair and plucked lightly at his clothing. And then he saw something standing in the path ahead of him. He stopped, and focused his light on it.
It was tall and black, surrounded by curling tendrils of fog which enshrouded it with ghostly white. Then, as Napoleon stared, part of it moved down slowly, revealing a death-white face with flaming eyes. The figure lowered its arms and took a deliberate pace towards him. Napoleon took half a pace backward and stopped. The face which caught the light from his lantern and the eyes which threw the light back were those he had seen in the cave, those he had seen in a miniature painting of a man dead two hundred and fifty years. It was the Count Tsepesh Stobolzny.
Napoleon took another step back as the Count came forward, the shadow cast by the lantern rising behind him great and black as his cloak billowed about him. He stopped ten feet away, and a slow horrible smile contorted his face. Solo's hands dived for his shoulder holster and flipped out his U.N.C.L.E. Special. He held the gun low enough that the other man could see it in the light and said, "Okay—stop right there or I'll shoot."