by Speer, Flora
“Ho, don’t let that thing loose near me,” the guard warned, stepping away from them. ‘`Go on, take it to the kitchen where someone will know what to do with it. You, there, have you got anything as dangerous as the crab? What is that terrible smell?”
“I’m not sure,” Narisa answered breathlessly. “Possibly these fruits, or the Demarian cheese. I only offered to help Suria, and she began giving me all these heavy packages to hold. I just want to put them down.”
“Then follow Suria to the kitchen, right at the end of that hallway.”
A moment or two later they were in the cavernous kitchen, where they unloaded their parcels and all the loose produce. The Jugarian crab was taken off to a cooling room to await the evening meal. Suria spoke to one of the cooks, then picked up a tray laden with dishes and nodded to Narisa to follow her. Together they went through a pantry to a narrow corridor, hurrying along it until they reached a steep flight of steps going down to the lower level of the house. It was gloomy and poorly lit. Narisa stayed close to Suria, taking the bundle of clothes intended for Gaidar under one arm and holding on to the stone wall with her free hand. The stairs curved toward the bottom and then ended in a square gray stone room. There a guard lounged in a chair with his feet up on a table.
“Well, Mistress Suria.” The guard was openly insolent. “What does our Leader’s latest woman have for me today? Some new delight?” He leered at her.
“Be careful,” Suria said sweetly, “or I’ll report you to Leader Tyre at a moment when he cannot refuse me anything. Here is your meal.” She plopped the tray on the table next to the guard’s feet, then removed a covered bowl. “This is for the prisoner.”
“Who is she?” The guard stared at Narisa.
“A friend of mine,” Suria answered. “She wants to see what a Cetan looks like.”
“You’d do better to stay with me, friend of Suria. I’m more entertaining than that surly fellow.”
“Is he as ugly as they say Cetans are?” Narisa asked with every appearance of ghoulish interest.
“See for yourself!” The guard waved them on and picked up a plate of stew from his tray. “Here, take the key if you want to go inside the cell. Just don’t scream for me if he attacks you.”
“This is poor security,” Narisa whispered to Suria as they made their way to Gaidar’s cell.
“They are overconfident and lazy like their Leader,” Suria replied. “It’s a good thing for us they are.”
They found Gaidar in the fourth cell on the left, an airless hole lit only by a smoking oil lamp, and without the furniture, the running water or the sanitary facilities required for all Jurisdiction prisoners. The stench in the corridor outside the cell was sickening.
“The guards say all Cetans smell like this,” Suria said, wrestling with the ancient lock and key.
“That’s not true. Gaidar is fairly clean. Suria, I am appalled by the lax security. There is no sign at all of an observation system, either at the guard’s post or here in this hall. Why isn’t Gaidar being monitored the way prisoners usually are?”
“I told you, they are lazy.”
“Either that, or they want him to escape.”
“Why would they want that?” Suria had just succeeded in turning the key in the lock, but she made no move to open the door.
“Think, Suria, as I have learned to do, thanks to Tarik. If Gaidar escapes, where can he go? On this world, where he is considered a deadly enemy, to whom can he flee? There is only one place: Almaric’s house, where Tarik and I are lodged.”
“You think I am tricking you, that I’m involved in the plot to destroy Almaric and his family? Narisa, I swear to you, I would do nothing to help Leader Tyre, not after the things he has made me do for him. He is the most disgusting creature. I risked my life to go to Almaric’s house and warn you what Tyre is planning, and I’m risking it again to help with this escape. I admit I like taking risks and I enjoy danger, but I’m not completely mad. I can easily imagine what Tyre will do to me if I am discovered with you and Gaidar.”
“I believe you, Suria. That doesn’t mean Tyre isn’t hoping Gaidar will try to escape, either on his own or with Tarik’s help, and perhaps Almaric’s.”
“We can’t just leave him here,” Suria argued. `’If Gaidar doesn’t escape, Tyre certainly has some particularly nasty end planned for him tonight. I know what I heard Tyre say.”
“Then let us release him,” Narisa agreed, “but be on guard and warn him what may happen so he can be prepared.”
The door swung open without the creaking of rusty hinges Narisa had half expected and then clicked shut behind them as Suria pulled on it. Gaidar crouched in one corner of the cell. His hair and beard were matted and dirty.
The single oil lamp gave enough light for Narisa to see him, the bowl of rotting food on the floor beside him, and the pile of excrement in the opposite corner. She gagged and thought she would be sick, until Gaidar looked up at her and she saw hope leap into his golden eyes.
“Narisa?” His voice was rough, as though his throat hurt.
“Hush, don’t say a word, just listen.” She went to her knees on the filthy floor in front of him. “This is Suria, a friend of mine. We are going to try to smuggle you out of here. The first thing we have to do is cut your hair and beard.”
“Cut it? No, never.”
“Gaidar, it’s for a disguise. A Cetan is supposed to be bearded.” Narisa pulled open the bundle she had been carrying and brought out the scissors. “Hold still, now, I have to work quickly.”
“Don’t cut it!” He whipped out his hand and caught her wrist. “Leave me alone.”
“Wouldn’t you like to be free, Gaidar?” Suria asked, her throaty voice pitched to its most enthralling tones. She had picked up the oil lamp from the floor and was holding it so her beautiful face was illuminated. Narisa, glancing over her shoulder, saw Suria smile and heard Gaidar’s indrawn breath. “Let Narisa do what she wants with your hair. It will grow back soon. With or without it, you are still a man. A strong man, one who should live to fight and love for many more years. Leader Tyre plans to kill you this night. Let us help you before it’s too late.”
As the hypnotic voice went on and on, Gaidar loosened his restraining hold on Narisa’s wrist.
“Cut it, then,” he said hoarsely. “Be quick about it, before I change my mind.”
“Have they given you no water?” Suria inquired, still in that seductive tone of voice. “Is that why your voice is rough?”
“No water, no wine, only one bowl of salty food, deliberately given to make me thirsty. I see you’ve brought another bowl. I would not eat the first, I will not eat that one, either.” Gaidar’s golden eyes were fixed on Suria’s face. He made no further objection when Narisa began to cut his hair just below his ears.
“There will be food and drink for you once you are safe,” Suria continued.
“Safe?” Gaidar managed a coarse laugh. “Does that mean you are taking me off-planet?”
“Trust us, Gaidar,” Narisa whispered. “There may be eavesdropping devices in here that we cannot see, so don’t ask us questions. Please, just do as we tell you.”
“I have no one else to trust. Not my beard, too?”
“All the men in the Capital are clean shaven,” Narisa pointed out. “I wish I could shave you, but a close trim will have to do for now.”
Once Narisa had finished with him, Gaidar stood up and stripped off his ragged and dirt-encrusted Cetan clothes.
“Keep your boots,” Narisa advised, handing him the servant’s trousers Kalina had provided. “Lots of people wear cast-off Service boots. Yours won’t be noticeable.” She was not at all affected by the sight of a naked Cetan. His tall figure with bulky muscles at arms and shoulders did not stir her in the way that Tank’s sleeker body could. She gave him the shirt, which he began to pull over his head.
Suria was still holding the oil lamp, watching the gleam of its light on Gaidar’s shoulders and torso. Gaidar pul
led the shirt down, leaving it outside the trousers, and reached for the coat Narisa held out to him.
“Pull up the hood to hide your face,” she cautioned. “And Gaidar, be warned, we may be stopped. I cannot promise this escape will succeed.”
“I understand. Have you a weapon for me?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll use my hands.” Gaidar flexed his large, strong fingers.
“There is a guard just down the hall,” Narisa said.
“I’ll start with him.” He looked at Suria and grinned. “Put down that lamp, woman, and let us be on our way. I’ll gladly strip again and let you stare at me as long as you want once we are out of here.”
“I wasn’t staring.” Suria set the lamp on the floor. “I’ll go first and distract the guard.”
“It won’t be difficult for you.” Gaidar chuckled, and Narisa looked at him in surprise.
Suria opened the cell door and went into the hall, the other two following her. The guard had finished eating and was standing beside the table, stretching, his back to them. When Suria would have approached him, Gaidar shouldered her out of the way and crept up behind the man. Narisa did not know exactly what Gaidar did. The guard’s hands were still stretched well over his head when the Cetan wrapped his own arms around the man’s middle and pressed hard. Within a second, without a sound, the guard hung limply from Gaidar’s arms.
“Is he dead?” Suria asked softly as the guard was lowered to the floor.
“Unconscious, and he will stay that way for several hours,” Gaidar replied. “He won’t give any alarm. Where do we go now, Narisa?”
“To the steps. Follow Suria.” They approached the bottom of the steep staircase that led to the kitchen. “Stoop a little, Gaidar. Try to look more like a servant and less like a proud warrior.”
Gaidar went into a crouch and began walking with a limp, a performance that under other circumstances would have made Narisa laugh aloud. Just now she was too busy listening and looking for danger, and too frightened to be amused.
It was the curve at the bottom of the stairs that saved them. They could hear footsteps coming downward and a man’s low voice, but because of the curve, they could neither see nor be seen.
Without a word, all three of them turned and fled back across the square room, past the unconscious guard, toward Gaidar’s cell.
Chapter Eleven
As Narisa hurried down the corridor she heard a noise behind her. Glancing backward, she saw Gaidar had picked up the unconscious guard and was carrying him. He stopped at his own cell long enough to dump the guard into it and shut the door. He turned the key in the lock and pulled it out.
“Looking for him should delay them a little before they discover I’ve gone,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “What’s at the end of this hall?”
“I have no idea.” Narisa began to run, Gaidar close behind her.
Suria had not paused with them. She was far down the hall, racing toward an unlighted area that offered at least a little shelter. The other two went in the same direction, trying to move as quietly as possible.
“This way.” Suria beckoned from a cross corridor. “They won’t be able to see us around this corner.”
They entered a smaller hall with no doors and a downward sloping floor. Dampness dripped from the walls, the air was dank and chill and the only light was the dim glow from the corridor they had just left. Gaidar reached around Narisa to capture Suria’s shoulder in one large paw and stop her forward motion.
“Where are you taking us?” he rumbled.
“I honestly don’t know. That stairway is supposed to be the only way out. We would have had a chance if we could have gotten up it and into the kitchen.”
“So you are taking us deeper into this pit of a prison?”
“What else can we do, Gaidar? Perhaps if we wait here a while, whoever was coming down the stairs will go away and we can escape as planned.”
“Or perhaps they’ll come back for us here,” Gaidar said.
There was a shout from the direction of the stairway, then another.
“It seems we have no choice.” Gaidar looked grim. “That sounds like the beginning of a search to me. We have nowhere to go now except along this hall. It must end somewhere, and there should be a door, otherwise why have a hall here at all? You go first, Suria. I’ll watch our rear. I’ll be watching you, too.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
Gaidar’s answer was a mirthless grin, barely discernable in the gloom.
“Start walking, woman. We’ll argue about trust later.”
The hall seemed to go on for miles, slanting ever lower and growing darker and damper and more vile-smelling as they went. By the time they reached the end, they would have been in complete darkness were it not for a small blue light glimmering above an ancient wooden door.
“It’s locked,” Suria reported, trying the handle.
“It’s also half-rotted.” Gaidar listened a moment. “I can still hear them up there. They will be coming down this hall any minute. Let me see if I can lift this door off its hinges.” He reached for the rickety middle hinge at one side of the door.
“Let me help.” Narisa knelt, working at the pin in the lowest hinge. It would not come out, but the hinge itself came free from the door frame, as did the hinge Gaidar was assaulting with greater strength, and slowly the lower half of the door began to bend out of the frame while the third, uppermost hinge held fast.
“Squeeze through, Suria,” Narisa grunted, “and push from the other side.”
As Suria wriggled her way around the edge of the door, the noises behind them grew louder. Narisa felt the door begin to move further from Suria’s weight against it.
“Go through, Narisa,” Gaidar ordered.
“No, you go first, Gaidar. You are bigger. It will take someone on each side of the door to hold it open enough for you. I can pull it shut again as I go through. Hurry!”
Gaidar did not argue. He forced his bulk into the narrow space between door and frame, puffing and groaning and trying to smother a few unpleasant words when the middle hinge scraped the back of his head. The last Narisa saw of him was his arm reaching around the door to drag her after him.
She ducked below the hinge and let him pull her through. The voices coming down the hall were much closer, and Narisa silently blessed the darkness that would make it difficult for their pursuers to notice the activity at the hall’s end.
Gaidar was doing his best to reset the door from the inside so the tampering would be unnoticed. He needed no help, so Narisa looked around. Her heart sank. They were on a muddy stone ledge that ran around a huge underground cavern illuminated by lurid red lightglobes. In the center of the cavern was a lake. No, not a lake, more like a gigantic pit. It was thick, heavy and bubbling, and she knew by the smell what it was before Gaidar spoke.
“We are in the sewer,” he said. “Our good luck. There will be a way out of here. All we have to do is find it.”
“We won’t have time.” Suria was listening at the door. “They are going to open this to see if we are in here, and if the hinges don’t hold, they will know where we are.”
“Then there is only one place for us to go so they don’t find us.” Gaidar was at the edge of the stone ledge, reaching down toward the ooze with one hand to search along the stone. “There is space between sewage and the ledge, enough for our heads so we can breathe. We go under the edge and stay hidden there until they leave. Our footprints won’t be noticed. This ledge is well trodden. Garbage must be dumped here every day.”
“Go into that slime?” Suria looked as if she was going to be sick. “I can’t do that.”
“If you won’t go,” Gaidar told her, “I’ll kill you and throw you in so they won’t find your body. I don’t plan to be retaken by Leader Tyre’s men. I’d rather die.”
“I said that about the Cetans once.” Narisa sat down on the ledge next to Gaidar. She was every bit as reluctant as Suria. Just the thoug
ht of that disgusting mess in the pit touching her skin made her feel ill, but she would not let Gaidar see her revulsion. From the sounds on the other side of the door she knew there wasn’t much time. “Will you hold my hands, Gaidar, and let me down slowly so my face doesn’t go under?”
Gaidar was sitting on the edge, his feet already in the muck. He took both of Narisa’s wrists in his. She took a deep breath and slid off the edge, feeling his great strength as he lowered her into the oozing pit until she could run her fingers along the slippery underside of the ledge and he carefully let her go. A moment later Suria, her disgust at the pit’s contents overcome by Gaidar’s threat to kill her, slipped slowly down beside Narisa. Gaidar followed, hanging on to the ledge long enough to smooth out any visible finger marks along its edge.
“Turn your face away from me,” he whispered. “There will be a splash when I come down.”
A moment later Narisa felt moistness wash up the back of her head into her hair. The pit was warm and thick, and solid objects kept bumping against her legs and feet. The smell was so bad she thought she would faint from it.
The three of them moved as far back beneath the ledge as they could possibly go, and waited while the door above them was unlocked. Footsteps squished on the muddy surface just above their heads. Lights flashed across the pit and onto the ledge that surrounded it.
“If they came in here, they are in the pit,” said a voice, “and drowned in it. There is no sign of them.”
“They must have taken the other corridor,” came a second voice. “Let’s hope the group searching it finds them. I don’t want to tell Leader Tyre his prisoner is gone.”
“He’s more likely to be upset about his latest woman being gone. Imagine sharing your wench with a Cetan. That is a serious indignity. I wonder what he’ll do to her when he finds her?”
One of the men above them made a nasty noise and spat into the lake and they both laughed. The footsteps moved away. The door slammed shut.
