"I won't desert him!" Jack said. He clamped his jaws firmly and glared at the others.
O-Reg said, "What about you, Polly O'Brien?"
Her heart-shaped face with the enormous eyes had lost its beauty. She was very pale; the skin around the eyes was stained a deep blue; the eyes were very restless. She looked at Jack, then at the horstels.
"You make up your mind what you want to do," Jack said. "I'm going to see my father."
He walked out of the cell and down the long oval corridor, barely wide enough for two people to pass each other. The walls were greenish-gray, smooth, without grain, and shiny. Every few feet, clusters of the globes hung from fleshy-looking stalks attached to the ceiling. Most of these were illuminated. But the light was that of twilight, and there was no sound except that of his feet on the slightly springy and somewhat cold floor. On each side, about every twenty feet, was a slit, the mark of a closed iris.
Once, on his right, he passed a half-opened iris, and he looked within. The cell just beyond was a very large one and much brighter than any he had seen. The walls were a dull orange streaked with jagged light green. In the middle of the floor, covered with rugs made of unicorn and tailbear hides and several unidentifiable skins, was a wide, very low, round table of a light-brown and shiny wood. Around it were piled more furs, apparently for those who wished to sit or lie down on them.
Against the wall opposite him was an iris fully open, and through this he got a glimpse of a female, about five years old, looking up at a siren. Presumably, the siren was the child's mother. Then the siren looked up from the child and saw Jack Cage. Her reaction was not at all what he would have expected. Surprise, embarrassment, a slight consternation, yes. But not the horror on her face. Even at that distance he could see her go pale, and the suddenly open mouth indicated a gasp.
He did not wait to see more but walked on. Yet he could not help considering that what she revealed in a moment of shock might be what she and most of her kind really felt about the human beings. Usually they were amiable or, at the least, polite in their dealings with men. Under that easy exterior, did they hide feelings toward man similar to man's toward them?
A moment later, he entered the cell where his father lay. Yath was still crouched by the side of Walt Cage and whispering into his ear. But now, even though Walt was unconscious or in a deep sleep, his skin was ruddy or pink. Moreover, there was a slight smile on his lips.
Yath stopped whispering and rose. "He will sleep for some time, then he will be ready to eat and to walk about a little."
"How soon can he walk out of here?"
"In about ten hours."
"How strong will he be then?"
Yath shrugged and said, "Depends on the man. Your father is very strong. I think he will be able to walk several miles -- at a slow pace. If you are thinking of taking him with you to the Thrruk very soon, do not. It will be several days before he could stand the rigors of flight through that wilderness."
"I wish I could talk to him," Jack said.
"You will have to wait a while," Yath replied. "By then, the meadows above us and the woods around will be infested with soldiers. No, my boy, you cannot get him to tell you what to do. You must make a choice for yourself and soon."
A voice came through the iris from the corridor outside. "Jack!"
Recognizing Polly, Jack left the room. She thrust a roughly cylindrical object, wrapped in a white cloth and bloody at one end, at him.
"The dragon's thumb," she said. "R'li was going to throw it away, but I took it. She laughed at me, even though I was keeping it for you."
"Why?"
"Brainless! Didn't you know that Mar-Kuk almost tore up the horn of this cadmus trying to get her thumb back? She failed, but she swore she'd kill you if she ever saw you again, and she'd get her precious thumb. I don't know how, but she knew your name. Probably the horstels told her some time ago, while she was robbing our farms. Anyway, she said that the next time she saw you, she'd mangle you. Which she will, unless you. . .
"Unless you have this, a part of her body. I know. My mother was a chemist, remember? And she did know more of horstel lore than she should have. She dealt in dragon bones, those dug up by miners or found by hunters. They bring a high price because they're supposed to make a wonderful heart medicine if ground up and drunk in wine. Also, an aphrodisiac.
"My mother told me some things about the dragons. They are very superstitious. They believe that if another person gets hold of a part of their body, a tooth, a claw, anything, that person can control them. Of course, Mar-Kuk is banking on your not knowing that, but she wants to kill you before you find out. Moreover, a dragon believes that if she dies with any part of her body missing, she's doomed to wail through their hell as a misshapen ghost."
Jack looked at the thumb, then put it in his jacket pocket. "Why would I need it unless I intended to leave the cadmus right now?" he said. "Did you think I was going to do that?"
"Of course! We both had better get out as quickly as we can and run like hell! The soldiers will start digging us out, you can bet your soul on that! They'll kill everybody. We'd be trapped!"
"I'm not going," he said. "I can't desert my father."
"Or leave that siren behind! Could you really be in love with her? Or is what they say about sirens true? The things they do to make a man fall into their spells?"
Jack flushed and said, "She'd go with me if I asked her. Or even without my asking her. No, I don't want to desert my father."
"Then you'll make a useless gesture. You'll be sacrificing yourself and your father both! I'm getting out!"
A tall red-haired satyr was approaching them. He carried a small leather bag.
"We'd better go now," he said to Polly. "The soldiers are almost here.''
Polly said to Jack, "It's not too late to change your mind. Siyfiy will guide us through the mountains."
Jack shook his head. Polly said, "You're a fool!"
Jack watched the two walk swiftly away until the upward curve of the hall took them out of sight. Then he re-entered the room where his father lay. A few minutes later, R'li and her father came in.
"The soldiers have just surrounded the cadmuses," O-Reg said. "Captain Gomes and Chuckswilly have demanded that we surrender all human beings. I am going out now to talk to them."
He embraced and kissed R'li and then walked out. Jack said, "You two act as if you thought you might never see each other again."
"We always kiss each other, even if we're going to be parted for just a few minutes. Who knows? At any time, we may be parted forever in this world. But, in this case, there is great danger.''
"Perhaps my father and I should give ourselves up," Jack said. "There is no compelling reason why your whole group should be in peril."
R'li looked impatient. "Please don't talk that way any more. It's not as if we had a choice. Those tarrta [a horstel word for the terrestrials meaning latecomers] want to attack us as much as they do you."
Jack paced back and forth. R'li sat down on a pile of furs and began to hum and to comb her hair with her pekita. Her absolute self-control and relaxed appearance irritated him. Savagely he said, "Are you people really human? How can you be so calm?"
She smiled and said, "Because it's needful. What good would it do for me to waste myself in the evil of worry and fretting? If I could do something positive, I'd be doing it. But I can't. So I send my concerns to a small corner of my mind. I know they're there, but they're veiled."
Uncomprehendingly, he stared at her.
She said, "If you had ever been through the Rites, darling, you'd be able to do the same thing. And you'd be very happy you had the ability."
A female horstel entered. She said, "Jack Cage, O-Reg wants you to show yourself to Gomes and Chuckswilly. They are claiming that you've been murdered. They threaten to invade us unless they can see you. O-Reg says that you do not have to come if you do not wish to."
"They know Polly O'Brien was here," Jack said
. "What about her?"
"She is out there, too. The soldiers came too swiftly; she couldn't get away in time."
R'li arose and said, "I'll go out with you, Jack."
"I don't think you should. This demand may just be a way for them to grab Polly and me. Maybe they're planning to kill the horstels above ground, too. No, you better stay here."
"I'm coming with you. Don't argue, please."
As they walked through the corridors, Jack said to the female who had brought the message, "What did they say about my father?''
"Gomes wanted to see him, too. O-Reg explained that he was hurt too badly to come. But Gomes said that he would take your word for it that your father is safe."
"I scent a trap," Jack said. "Why are they so concerned about us? We've taken sanctuary and so put ourselves beyond the law of Dyonisa. What do they care what happens to us?"
"I doubt if they do," R'li replied. "But they're looking for any excuse at all to attack us. We're trying to placate them as much as possible."
The other siren said, "We won't be entirely helpless if they do try to seize the tarrta or attack us. O-Reg has fifty armed warriors with him. We are showing them that we won't be taken like a puppy."
They stepped through the iris into the chamber within the horn of the cadmus and then out onto the meadow. The sun had been up for about an hour, and the mejadow was bright. Near the cadmus entrance stood O-Reg and a group of satyrs with bows and arrows and spears. Polly O'Brien was a few paces behind the Blind King.
Two men were talking to O-Reg. Gomes, the captain of the garrison, was a short, stocky man with a broad face and a thick, yellow mustache. He wore the conical, leather-covered helmet, leather cuirass, and long kilt of the Dyonisan soldier. His broad leather belt supported a scabbard and a holster for a flintlock pistol with a glass barrel. The glass rapier, however, was in his hand. Chuckswilly stood by him. Behind the two, at a distance of forty yards, were several hundred soldiers and about fifty armed civilians. These were arranged in a crescent, the horns of which curved inward toward the cadmus. Most of them were archers or spearmen, but a small group bore flintlock glass muskets.
Gomes, seeing Jack Cage, called out, "Are you being kept there against your will? Is your father alive?"
Jack Cage opened his mouth to speak boldly but found the words were caught in his throat. For the first time, with the eyes of so many human beings on him, most of whom represented the authority of his country, he realized fully what he was doing. He was a traitor. Worse, he had gone over to the enemies of mankind and to soulless beings who rejected his God. He would be excommunicated, damned forever, he would burn for eternity. His name would be a curse word; every man would despise and hate him.
R'li, who was standing behind him, touched his shoulder. "I know how you must feel;" she whispered. "No man could lightly cut himself off from his own. If you can't do it, I'll understand."
Later, he found himself wondering if she had known just what to do to precipitate him over the cliff. Was she so good a psychologist that she understood exactly what nerves to stimulate in him, precisely what components of his pride and his love for her to trigger?
At that moment, he did not think at all or was not conscious of taking any thought. He turned, placed his arm around her waist, and swung around to face Gomes and Chuckswilly. Then he kissed R'li full and hard on the lips.
A shout broke from the soldiers and the civilians. Gomes cried, "You filthy whoreson!"
O-Reg looked startled. He moved close to Jack and said fiercely. "You fool! Are you trying to start a battle here? Do you want us to be killed?"
He stepped back and said, "Well, the damage's done. There's no turning back for you now, Jack Cage. Nor for any of us."
"I love you," R'li said.
Jack was so overcome with what he had done and the suddenness of it that he was faint. His heart, which had been beating hard enough before, now hammered at his breast.
O-Reg's voice roared above the others. "You have your answer! Jack Cage has voluntarily entered and wishes to remain with us. As for his father, he will be released as soon as he is able to walk -- if he wants to return to you."
Chuckswilly shouted, "You have used your satan's magic to pervert that poor boy's soul! I cannot believe that he would do this if he were in full possession of his faculties! I demand that you hand him over so that our doctors and priests may examine him!"
O-Reg smiled savagely. "And if you find that he is in his right mind, you will then let him come back to us? Do we have your promise to do that?"
"Of course you do. I will swear on the Bible that he will be set free," Chuckswilly said.
"Our fathers had some experience with your fathers and their Bible-swearing when you people first came here," O-Reg said. "We saw how much you value the resentment of your deity against oath-breakers. No, thank you."
Gomes was rigid as a statue except for his right hand, which tugged at the whiskers on the edge of his mustache. Obviously he was trying to make a decision.
But Chuckswilly did not wait for him to speak. He turned to face the soldiers, and he bellowed, "Seize the heretics and sorcerers!"
Some soldiers stepped forward, then halted when they saw the uncertainty of the others. Gomes came out of his rigidity and shouted, "I'm in command here! Back to your posts!"
Jack said to O-Reg, "There's nothing to be gained by talking any more. I think we should return to the cadmus! And fast!"
"You're right," O-Reg said. "You and Polly O'Brien go first. We'll cover you. R'li, you go with Jack."
"No, you don't!" Chuckswilly cried. He drew his rapier and ran at Jack. O-Reg stepped in front of him and lifted the Blind King's staff to protect himself. The rapier drove in past the staff and entered O-Reg's solar plexus. He shrieked and fell backward with Chuckswilly on top of him.
Jack pushed R'li and yelled, "You and Polly get out of here!"
Without waiting to see if they were obeying, he turned around again. O-Reg's staff was lying by his dead hand, and his killer was just getting to his feet. Jack jumped forward, stooped, picked up the staff, and brought it down hard against Chuckswilly's leather helmet. The man groaned and pitched, face down, on the corpse of the Blind King.
There was a whistle as an arrow flew past his ear. A horstel screamed behind Jack. Then the air was thick with feathered shafts. A few guns fired. Jack threw himself on the ground by the two bodies but leaped up a second later. One glance showed him that the fire of both sides had taken its toll. Polly and R'li were lying on the ground, but they were alive and unhit.
"Run for it!" he screamed at them. He picked up Chuckswilly's rapier and faced the horde running toward him across the meadow. The soldiers and civilians who had not been downed by the first volley had abandoned discipline and were trying to get to the horstels before they could shoot a second time. They did not make it. The horstels, acting under the barked commands of their officer, fired again. Those in the forefront of the attackers crumpled.
Those behind them leaped over their bodies and closed in on the archers.
Gomes parried the spear thrust of a horstel and backed away. Jack, yelling, ran up to him and drove the point of his rapier into the captain's neck. Gomes fell backward, taking the blade with him and tearing it out of Jack's hand. Jack stared at the open dead eyes of Gomes and the rapier projecting halfway from the neck. Then a soldier with a short stabbing spear was on him.
Jack wrenched the rapier from the flesh of Gomes and brought the blade up just in time to deflect the soldier's thrust. With the other hand, he seized the shaft of the spear and jerked the man to him. He brought the rapier around and slammed its round blade against the side of the man's neck. As the soldier fell forward, Jack brought his knee up against his chin. He leaped back; the soldier crumpled unconscious to the grass.
Afterward he did not remember much detail. It was mostly thrust and parry and jump and run. He did not think he wounded or killed anybody after that. The second he got a chan
ce, he retreated from the one attacking him. His first concern was R'li; therefore, he tried to get back to the cadmus entrance.
When he did so, he found the opening was half blocked by fallen bodies and fully blocked by a melee of men and horstels. Then he saw R'li and Polly O'Brien running away from the cadmus. There was a space of about twenty yards forming an avenue to the woods by the side of the meadow, and the two women were running down it. Jack yelled after them without thinking that they could not possibly hear him above the shouts, shrieks, din of weapons on weapons, and the occasional explosion of a firearm.
He ran after them. When he was halfway down the avenue, it closed up again. He had to fight and dodge his way from then on. Twice he was knocked down, and once he felt a sharp flint drive into his side. But he fell back; the point came out; the man holding the spear stepped forward to lunge again. But the soldier dropped the weapon and reached behind him to try to pull out the knife that had been struck into him by a horstel.
Jack got away without thanking his savior and began to crawl. Strangely, or not so strangely, this method of escape proved the swiftest and safest. Those who saw him, if any did pay any attention, must have thought that he was too badly wounded to bother with.
R'li and Polly were hiding behind some bushes. He turned to look at the field. By now the human beings were running for their lives. Horstels had poured out of the other cadmus exits, and in a short time, overwhelmed the soldiers and civilians. They could have overtaken those running away, but for some reason they had chosen not to do so.
R'li was weeping. Jack tried to comfort her, but he could not stop her wailings. Polly said, "Let her cry it out. Oh, my God!"
Jack looked at where she was pointing. He echoed her cry. Several hundred reinforcements, all armed with muskets, were trotting across the meadow.
The horstels, seeing them, began to pick up their dead and wounded. Before they could get them safely into the cadmuses, the soldiers had formed into two ranks each, strung across the meadow. An officer shouted commands. The first row sank to one knee and aimed their weapons.
"Fire!"
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