Chthon

by Piers Anthony

  “But how does 5—?”

  “Spell it out. F-I-V-E. That I is worth 9; the E, 5. Add them up to make 14. That’s too big, so add the one and the four to each other to get your number: 5.”

  Framy’s face lighted. “Five is 5!” he said, delighted with the discovery. Someone snickered, but he was oblivious. He would be translating people to numbers for many shifts to come.

  Suddenly he sobered. “You say 5 is dangerous?”

  “Full of surprises. 5 can bring a fortune out of the blue—or sudden death. Really has to watch his step.”

  Aton steered the subject back once more. “You were talking about the special garnet.”

  Hastings settled his belly back comfortably. He waited. The others chuckled: it was Aton’s turn to cough up the stake.

  “Well, take a look at it this way,” Hastings said after the transaction. “A blue garnet is valuable. So valuable that a man might bribe his way to freedom with it. That’s a commendable price. Perhaps there are no blues, so the authorities believe they’re safe; or it may be their subtle way of telling us that there is no such thing as a reprieve. But if there is such a thing—a blue garnet, I mean—it is certain that it is a lot more valuable than a prisoner or a principle. Now all of us here are criminals—”

  “I ain’t!” Framy yelled. “I ain’t no criminal. I was—”

  “FRAMED!” the group chorused.

  “Well, I was,” Framy said, hurt.

  “…Criminals, imprisoned here for the rest of our unnatural lives. There isn’t any one of us here who doesn’t want to get out more than anything else he can think of. There isn’t any one of us who has a chance at all, unless he wants to take the Hard Trek. Except for the one who happens to uncover the blue stone.

  “Now if I had a blue garnet right here in my hand, like this—” he extended a closed fist “—and I said, ‘Gentlemen, I have found eureka and I’m going to leave you now…!’ “

  The fingers of his hand slipped apart a little, accidentally, it seemed. A touch of blue showed through. They watched in shocked silence.

  Hastings made as if to rise. “Well, freedom is calling me!” he sang out gaily. “Be seeing you—never!”

  Three flying bodies crashed him to the floor, as two men and a woman launched themselves simultaneously. One grabbed his outflung arm and wrenched the hand open with cruel force. A fragment of blue cloth fluttered out.

  They turned him loose silently, the avarice in their faces fading. Hastings heaved himself upright, rubbing his arm. “Maybe you get my meaning now,” he said. “You can’t go free unless you make your garnet known. And when you do…”

  • • •

  Garnet was hard on Aton. She reviled him every time she saw him, and lost no opportunity to make him miserable. His meals were difficult. Garnet claimed that his offerings were too small or had flaws, or merely denied he had given her one, thus forcing two or even three for a single package.

  Aton took it. He never argued with her, always thanked her for the food as though she were doing him a favor. He stood silent while she yelled at him, simply looking at her. At times he would come to her for no apparent reason, just to sit and listen to her scream at him.

  Framy couldn’t understand it. “What you want to hang around her for?” he inquired incredulously. “There’s lots better women’n her. Nice bodies and soft tongues, and they got the eye for you, Fiver, oh, my, they do. Like that sexy slut with the black hair. Why fool with the biggest bitch in the pit?”

  Aton didn’t answer.

  Garnet grew progressively more violent. It was not uncommon for her to strike him with her fist, or to kick him. Something was driving her to fury. Aton accepted it with equanimity, sometimes even smiling.

  There was no night or day in Chthon, but the prisoners tended to slip into a typical cycle of labor and rest oriented on the regular meals. Most worked in company, though the mines were fiercely individual, and retired to private caves to sleep. Aton chose his own hours, and so happened to be working alone when Garnet came upon him as he was chipping out an unusually large gem.

  She began cursing him immediately. “Keep working, you dirty bastard,” she shouted, as he stopped to give her courteous attention. Aton only smiled—in the caverns, strictly speaking, everyone was dirty. Washing was done by the action of sand and wind. The standard epithet referred to more than physical status. “This ain’t no vacation.”

  “I know, my dear.”

  Her mouth fell open. Speechless with rage, she scooped up a stone and bashed it against the gem in the wall. Aton glanced at the ruin and took hold of her.

  “It seems you have taken your payment,” he said, a new note in his voice. “Now it is time for you to render service.”

  She struck at him. He knocked away the stone and took her down on the cavern floor. He was far stronger than she, as his genes were derived from the modified stock of the heavy-gravity Hvee colony. Quick blows to selected nerves made her stiffen with pain; shock made her passive for the moment, though she retained full consciousness and sensation.

  Then realization came, and she struggled violently, but there was nothing she could do. No broken song stopped him this time, and Garnet had the protection of neither clothing nor experience.

  It was over at his convenience, and he let her go. She stumbled away, cursing in a whisper and not knowing how to cry. He knew she would never speak of the matter; her shame was not the forgotten role revisited upon her, but the fact that he had been the one to master her, in every sense of the word.

  The image of Malice was in his mind as he brushed away the blood-red fragments of the shattered garnet. I had no pleasure from you, he thought, not even that of conquest.

  6

  “Five, Fiver, you got to come with me right now!” Framy was more excited than Aton had ever seen him before. “You got to come, you got to see it, you got to.”

  Framy was a high-strung individual, but this was something out of the ordinary. Aton went.

  Framy led the way upwind, far outside the habited caverns. “I been exploring,” he explained breathlessly. “I been looking for something…”

  He had been looking far afield. Aton was glad for the chance to scout the outlying area; he had not had a pretext before. The strength of the gale increased as they went, and the heat blasted into their faces fiercely. They paused often to gulp huge quantities of water.

  The journey seemed interminable. For more than an hour they plunged into the furnace draft, fighting mounting pressure. At last the little man stopped.

  “Around that corner,” he gasped. “Put your head around, careful, so you can see it.”

  Aton obliged, gripping the ridged wall as well as he could. The heat and wind intensified, and his eyes burned and blurred almost immediately. He wondered, fleetingly but not for the first time, what possible origin there could be for a subterranean holocaust such as this. He’d probably never know; the secret was protected by its own temperature.

  The cave ahead was like any other, with a high ceiling and an opening at the far end from which the wind howled ravenously. The luminescence from the walls was brighter here, and of a different texture. The greater heat and agitation might be responsible—except that the glow had been decreasing up to this point. Aside from this mystery, the scene was not distinctive.

  Something caught his eye. Aton studied the ceiling. There, from long corrugations, water was dropping and evaporating into the rushing air. This was where the moisture came from, for the condensers. That evaporation probably also exerted considerable cooling power. It might be the only thing that made these caverns bearable at all.

  “The floor! Look at the floor!” Framy was shouting in his ear. Aton forced his bleary eyes to focus and looked.

  There, at the far edge of the grotto, on the verge of the tunnel beyond, was a single glowing blue garnet.

  They withdrew to relative shelter to consider the situation. “I saw it,” Aton said. “I saw it. But remember Hasty’
s warning—”

  Framy was practically dancing with excitement. “I don’t care what Fatsy said. I got to have that rock.”

  “It would be better just to leave it alone. You’d never make it out of Chthon. That gem is death.”

  Framy turned on him fiercely. “You want me to leave it so’s you can take it yourself. You want to get out worse’n anybody. I know you—”

  Aton stared him down.

  “I’m sorry, pal,” the little man said. “I know you wouldn’t do nothing like that. But look—I just got to have it. I got to.”

  Aton said nothing.

  “Look,” Framy began again, desperately. “It ain’t like I was a criminal like everyone else here. I don’t mean nothing against you, Fiver. I don’t know what you done. But I was framed. It ain’t right I should be down here. I got to get out.”

  You fool, Aton thought, don’t you know that you are better off here than you could ever be outside? Your own mind has framed you into suicide.

  Seeing his companion still deep in thought, Framy spoke more rapidly. “It ain’t as if—ain’t like anybody’d know I had it. I’d hide it in the skin ‘til I had a chance to smuggle out a message. Tally, upstairs, wouldn’t cheat—”

  Would you offer your heart to the chimera? thought Aton.

  Aton came to a decision. “All right. Who’s going to fetch it?”

  It was a good question. They huddled against the wall near the bend, increasingly aware of the enormous heat rushing by, knowing how much worse it would be on the other side of the water-drip. Already their drinking supply was low. It would take a strong man to reach the garnet and return.

  But Framy was undismayed. “That’s why I needed you,” he admitted. “I’da told you anyway, Five pal, but—I figured it I run for it I can make it to the stone. But in case I don’t make it, I got to have someone to pull me back. Remember, I done you a favor—”

  You should not have done that favor. The wage of carelessness is death.

  “I think I’ve heard that reasoning before,” Aton said. “But if you’re fool enough to try it, I’m fool enough to haul you back. We’d better get on with it before we fry.”

  “Thanks, pal,” Framy said simply. He plunged ahead immediately with a bravery that belied his reputation. Aton saw him rocked back against the wall by the hot gust. Framy shielded his face with a forearm and forced his way onward. He was out of the full current, driving along the side wall, but his progress was still agonizingly slow. He was leaning forward against the pressure, feet placed and braced most carefully. The skin of his arm reddened with the heat.

  At length he reached the edge of the far tunnel. Here the draft abated, missing the small pocket formed by the projecting rock surrounding the opening. But Aton knew that the channeled flow would be ferocious directly in front of the tunnel. That was where the garnet sat, trapped in a minor declivity. It must have rolled there from the room beyond, perhaps many years ago.

  Framy put a tentative hand out into the blast and withdrew it quickly. Here it was really hot. The drops from the ceiling vanished into the wind several feet below this spot. Then, gathering himself for a final effort, Framy dived for the garnet.

  Aton saw the man’s body caught by the current and hurled sideways. He felt the terrible pain. But one hand was on the garnet, gripping it tightly. Framy had his blue ticket to destruction.

  He rolled with the wind and struggled to pull himself out of it, into the shelter to the side. But his efforts were weak, haphazard, disorganized by pain; soon they ceased altogether. He was unconscious, and would soon be dead.

  Aton charged into the room. He too was caught by the power of the air and tossed back against the nearer wall. He dropped to hands and knees, ducked his head behind his shoulder, inched toward the prone figure. He knees skidded against the smooth surface as the center stream took hold. It was hard to breathe.

  Aton lowered himself to his belly and heaved forward. He no longer tried to look where he was going, as the wind buffeted head and body; human eyes could not endure the strain. He concentrated on his blind direction, his head cleaving the holocaust. He did not know when he reached the body.

  Realizing that the thing he was crawling over was an arm, Aton took hold and tried to reverse. His eyes smarted painfully the moment he opened them; it was better to be blind. But he was unable to turn around while hanging on to the arm. He sat up.

  The blast of wind caught him again and flipped him over. For one brief moment his eyes popped open, bringing him a tormented but perfect picture of the cavern beyond the garnet’s spot. Then he was on his belly again, feet in the wash, toes blistering, hands dragging a pinioned arm as he wriggled, like a sightless, dehydrated worm, away from the kiln.

  He found himself emerging from the hell room, unaware of anything that had transpired since the vision of the far cavern. He must have been only partly conscious himself, dragging on by instinct. He twisted around to sight along the arm he clasped, and discovered that Framy was still attached to it. Framy’s other hand still clutched the garnet.

  Aton gulped water feverishly from the water-skin that was propped in an alcove, then put both hands to his mouth to stop the invaluable fluid from spewing out again. His bag was now empty; he found Framy’s and forced the last of that supply down the man’s barely conscious throat. The need was imperative—there were blisters and bruises all over Framy’s body.

  Why didn’t we think to pour all the water into one skin, and use the other for a shield? he thought, too tired to be angry.

  Framy revived at last. “We got to get out of here,” he rasped.

  He clutched his treasure and leaned on Aton as they stumbled down the passage.

  Both men regained strength as distance eased the sirocco. Once the wind diminished and cooled, their progress was better. They could afford to let it boost them along. Half an hour saw them well on the way home.

  But it was not over yet. Framy skidded to a precipitous halt. “Five. Look!”

  A small monster barred their path. Animals were few in Chthon, and almost never seen by man, but they did exist and were invariably formidable. The chimera was the worst, but there were other terrors, too. This one was a nine-inch lizard-like creature, red as a garnet. Deep-set and evil eyes glared burningly; a wrinkled jaw opened and closed with spasmodic intensity.

  “Salamander!” Framy whispered.

  Aton had heard of them. The miniature fire lizards inhabited the upwind caverns. They were fast and vicious and could leap high, and their tiny jaws secreted deadly poison. One scratch, even one squirt of it on blistered skin, and it would be over.

  “We could outrun it,” Aton said.

  “Where? Back there?”

  The salamander did not allow them time to discuss the matter. It charged, fat little legs scratching on the rock. Awkward it might appear, but it was making a good five miles per hour against the wind.

  They wheeled as one and ran back up the passage. The wind seemed to strike with renewed force, pushing them back. The lizard followed with grim determination, losing ground, but grudgingly. It was evident that it could maintain the pace a lot longer than the suddenly exhausted men. The feeling of strength engendered by downwind travel was illusory.

  Ordinarily a man could outrun a salamander, since its cruising speed was limited and largely independent of the wind. But Aton and Framy were trapped in unfavorable conditions, and had neither space nor strength to make an escape upwind. Yet it would be foolhardy to wait; bare hands and feet were no match for a creature that could jump and bite at will in close quarters. The passage was too narrow; the weapons impotent. Oh, for Bossman’s axe!

  Framy ground to a halt. “I’m beat,” he gasped. “I can’t go no more.”

  Aton tried to help him along, but was too fatigued himself to do enough. The salamander was gaining. The adventure in the cave of the blue garnet had taken too much out of both of them.

  “No use,” Framy said. “Just one thing to do.” With a supr
eme effort he held out the garnet. “You got a good arm?”

  Aton didn’t argue. He took the glinting gem, hefting its two-ounce weight carefully. He fired it at the oncoming lizard.

  His aim was low. The stone bounced on the floor directly before its target and cracked into two pieces. One of them sailed over the creature’s head; the other caught it in the middle of the body, skittering it sideways a few inches. Stung, the salamander pounced vengefully on the fragment, jaws clamping in a vicious bite.

  They did not stay to watch the result. There was little question what a garnet fragment would do to a set of clamping teeth. They hurdled the thrashing monster and ran on down the passage to safety.

  “It wouldn’t have been any good anyway,” Aton said when they slowed, knowing the emotion Framy felt at the loss of his prize. “It had a flaw. Garnets don’t break like that.”

  “We could’ve used the skins,” Framy said.

  This was the second time Aton’s mind had betrayed him under pressure, the second time proper use of the water-skins would have reduced their risk. Throw one at the lizard, bury it, if only for a moment—what had prevented him from trying that?

  Now the garnet was gone. The blue garnet that could never bring freedom, except in the most devious way. The caverns would riot if they knew of it; no integrity was secure in the face of such a lure.

  “Best not to tell—” he said.

  “Who’d believe me?”

  The secret would be kept, for a time.

  And what of the larger secret? Aton asked himself. The one that could generate such chaos as to destroy both worlds of Chthon? Am I to tell them what I saw in that one brief glimpse of the far cavern, as the wind flipped me over?

  Must it remain unknown: an entire passage lined with lustrous blue crystal?

  §398

  Four

  “Machinist Five to Hold Seven, Cargo. Emergency.” Aton shut down his machine and grabbed his shirt as the foreman waved him on.

  “That’s the Captain! Take priority routing.”