The Pixilated Peeress

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Thorolf took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and fought his rising panic. He told himself: Come on, weren't you just as frightened when the howling mob of Tzenrican revolutionaries rushed upon you?

  "What matter?" said Gak from within the tunnel. "Fear?"

  At least, thought Thorolf, he could not let this backward aboriginal see that he was afraid. He forced himself to step boldly into the tunnel, ignoring the painful pounding of his heart.

  "Dark!" he muttered.

  "You see," said Gak. The troll slipped off his shoulder the strap of his goatskin bag. He took out a pair of rushlights and a Rhaetian copper igniter, and he charged the device with tinder.

  "Where get?" asked Thorolf, pointing to the igniter.

  "Trade. Soon we make, too." Gak pulled the trigger and lit the rushlights from the brief yellow flame. He handed one to Thorolf and pushed the door back to its closed position. The trolls, Thorolf saw, had cleverly fabricated the stone door to fit the tunnel entrance, with pivots at top and bottom.

  The meager light enabled Thorolf to stride after Gak. The tunnel sloped down, leveled off, and sloped some more. Where the solid rock gave way to earth, the tunnel had been lined with rough-hewn planking. The planks overhead were braced at intervals by posts against collapse.

  They walked and walked; when Thorolf's rushlight weakened, Gak produced another. The floor became wet. In places mud had worked its way up between the planks, giving a slippery surface on which the yellow flames of their torches cast a flickering reflection. Thorolf thought he could hear the rumble of street traffic overhead.

  Little by little his panic subsided, only now and then returning with a rush. He smiled in the near-dark; if he would never really enjoy being in a tunnel, at least he could now face such burrows with becoming fortitude.

  "Step!" muttered Gak.

  Thorolf found that he was ascending a stair, then walking on a level, then climbing again. Now and then the opening of a side tunnel gaped blackly in the rushlight. The passage became so narrow that both Thorolf and Gak had to turn sideways to squeeze through. Thorolf fought down a return of panic.

  "Quiet!" breathed Gak. Thorolf gripped his scabbard lest it clank or scrape against stone.

  The tunnel ahead showed a feeble blur of gray against blackness. As they approached, Thorolf saw that the left-hand wall had been chiseled out to form a rectangular opening, large enough to go through without stooping but only a span deep. The far end was blocked by a screen of some sort, which admitted enough light for Thorolf's dark-adapted eyes to see.

  As Thorolf peered at the screen, he picked out a variegated pattern of darker patches. The mottling resolved itself into a familiar-seeming form. Then he realized that he was looking at the back of a well-known painting. It was the huge picture, in the assembly chamber of the Rhaetian Senate, of Amalt of Thessen, in armor, leading the charge against the Carinthians. To Thorolf's vision, the figures were reversed right and left.

  Thorolf could not see anything in the room through the canvas. He listened, holding his breath, but detected no sounds of human presence. He gently touched the back of the painting. The canvas swung out and away a little; it was evidently hung from the top. A sharp hiss from Gak made him jerk his hand away, and the picture returned to its normal position with the ghost of a thump.

  Thorolf wondered where the chimney flue led up from the fireplace over which the painting hung. By rights it should pass through the space where he now stood; but the masonry beneath his feet seemed solid. There must be an offset, carrying the flue beneath his feet to the passage wall behind him and then up. Perhaps the Carinthian governors had built these holes to spy upon the king's officials or to escape from Zurshnitt in a crisis.

  Thorolf did not feel he could spend time on this architectural puzzle. "Now castle!" he whispered.

  They went back to where the tunnel widened. Gak's light ahead seemed to vanish, leaving a faint afterglow. Hurrying, Thorolf found that the troll had turned into one of the side tunnels.

  Again they walked and walked and climbed almost invisible stairs. The climb went on and on until even Thorolf, strong and inured to hardship though he was, found his breath coming faster. They wormed through passages even narrower than that which led to the Senate chamber.

  At last Gak stopped, holding up a hand. Thorolf found that he faced another rectangle of dark gray against the blackness. This aperture was smaller than that into the Senate chamber but still large enough to squeeze through.

  "Quiet!" murmured Gak. "Castle. Sophonomists here."

  Thorolf examined the screen. The paint must be thicker on this picture, he thought; or else the light in the room beyond must be dimmer. He could not decipher the painting until he noticed several black patches against the gray, each in the form of an oak leaf. Then he remembered the painting of the Divine Couple in the Chamber of Audience, whither Orlandus had conducted him on his first visit to the Sophonomist lair. The black spots were the oak leaves that a later artist had painted to conceal the deities' sexual parts, in deference to the Rhaetians' puritanism.

  There was, however, a tiny spot of light high up on the back of the painting; Thorolf remembered that the picture was slightly torn. He leaned forward and put his eye to the tear. By moving slightly he found that he could bring most of the chamber into view. The room seemed empty.

  "Finish?" Gak asked. "Come away?"

  Thorolf wagged a hand. "Wait!" he whispered. "Must see Sophonomists."

  "Bad!" muttered Gak. "Have magic. Find us ..." Gak drew a finger across his throat.

  "Fear?" asked Thorolf. Gak had put the same question to him at the tunnel entrance.

  "No fear," said Gak rapping his chest with his knuckles. "No damn fool, either."

  "Wait ..."

  Thorolf stiffened at the sound of voices. One of the doors swung gently open. In came Yvette of Grintz, in a yellow robe, followed by the stout, red-haired, red-robed Parthenius, whom Thorolf had met before. The Countess was saying in that toneless deltaic voice:

  "... but my good Doctor, I must obey the Master's orders, and he has not commanded me to lie with you."

  "But," expostulated Parthenius, "ye know I be Orlandus' second in command, his lieutenant in all things. Aught I ask, ye may take as coming from him. Since he cares not for commerce with women, 'tis nought to him whose bed ye haunt. So take this as an order, my lady: Ye shall repair to my chamber after curfew, to pass the night there in pleasure. Ye shall not regret it!"

  "My pleasure is but to do my Master's will," said Yvette's flat voice. "Nameless, I will not comply without a direct command from the Master."

  "Then bide ye here; I'll fetch our Psychomagus in person!"

  "If he say so—" began Yvette; but Parthenius bus-tied out.

  Thorolf's mind was in a whirl. The sight of Yvette aroused his passions to a feverish pitch. Parthenius' crude effort to extort her sexual favors filled him with blinding rage.

  For the moment, the fact that Yvette was no gentle maiden but an experienced woman of the world mattered not at all. Thorolf wanted to get her out of Zurshnitt at any cost. What he would do with her, since she still acted as mechanically as one of the figurines that marked the hours on Rhaetian clocks, he had not figured out. He would get her away and let the future unfold as it would.

  Thorolf pushed the back of the painting. Like the picture in the Senate chamber, this work of art was secured at the upper edge, so that it swung away from the wall. He pushed it farther and lowered himself to the floor, a little over a yard below the lower edge of the hole in the wall. Below the bottom of the picture the unused fireplace gaped; its chimney must follow the same zigzag route up as that in the Senate chamber.

  As Thorolf gathered himself up and let the painting swing back, he heard a squawk from Gak: "Ho! Come back, fool!"

  Yvette turned and stared at Thorolf, bringing her hand to her mouth with a jerky intake of breath. "Sergeant!" she cried, her blue eyes wide. "What dost?"

  Thorolf bounded
forward, reaching for her wrist. "Come, Yvette! I'll whisk you out of this prison!"

  She backed away, avoiding his grasp. "I serve only the Master!" she said. Then she turned and fled toward the door through which Parthenius had vanished.

  A thump behind Thorolf told him that Gak had also dropped into the room. The troll roared: "You crazy? Back!"

  A glance showed Thorolf that Gak was rushing upon him with clutching hands. In quick succession, the three raced through the door and down the corridor beyond. Simultaneously, the scarlet-robed Orlandus and Parthenius appeared at the far end. Both gaped at the sight of Yvette, Thorolf, and Gak rushing toward them in single file, each trying to seize his predecessor.

  "Who be you?" Parthenius shouted at Thorolf.

  "He's no diaphane!" cried Orlandus. "He's a mundane disguised! That's a stolen robe!"

  Yvette dodged past the leaders of Sophonomy. Thorolf, thinking that here was a chance to behead this evil cult at a blow, swept out his sword. The unarmed cult-ists should be easy prey.

  Parthenius shouted: "Guards! To us!" Orlandus hurled something to the floor and shouted words. Instantly there appeared, between Thorolf and the Sophonomists, the fearsome figure of an ogre. It was half again as tall as a man, with a thick, warty hide. Webbed fingers and toes ended in talons, and a pair of horns surmounted pointed ears. From beneath its blob of a nose, like a weird mustache, sprang a pair of yard-long tendrils, which writhed like serpents. Looking sharply, Thorolf perceived that the ogre was slightly transparent. Bardi's anti-illusion spell was evidently still working.

  Thorolf heard a yelp of dismay from Gak, who hurled his spear, turned, and ran back the way he had come. The spear went through the ogre and clattered on the floor beyond.

  The ogre spread its taloned hands as if to seize Thorolf, who instinctively struck forehand with his sword. The blade passed through the torose body without resistance, so that the force of Thorolf's blow spun him round and almost felled him. Seeing Gak rushing through the door to the audience chamber, he shouted:

  "Come back! 'Tis mere illusion!"

  Gak continued his flight. Hearing the clatter of approaching guards, Thorolf ran after the troll.

  When Thorolf reentered the Chamber of Audience, Gak was disappearing into the passage behind the painting. Thorolf slammed the door behind him, shot the bolt, and pushed the divan in front of the door. Leaning toward the door, he shouted in Rhaetian:

  "Out the other door, Gak! It leads to the main gate!"

  Then he, too, pulled the painting out from the wall and hoisted himself into the dark aperture. From the blocked door came shouts and hammering.

  Gak had picked up the two rushlights, which he had left leaning against the wall. He handed one to Thorolf, growling: "Quick, fool!"

  The troll's big, hairy feet slapped the floor of the tunnel as he led the way with reckless haste. When they reached the junction with the main tunnel, they paused to catch their breath. Thorolf listened but heard nothing save his and Gak's heavy breathing. When their chests had ceased to heave, Gak said:

  "You mad? Evil spirit have you?"

  "My first mate," Thorolf gasped.

  After a long pause, Gak said: "Ah! Understand. Come."

  -

  Back at the troll village, Thorolf told Wok of his adventure. Wok said: "Ye are lucky to escape the results of your folly at the cost of one spear. I will not let Gak or any other of my folk take part in another such foray. Too risky."

  "It behooved me to do something," said Thorolf defensively.

  "Wherefore? One lowland female more or less, what matter? I know not what ye see in lowland females anyway. Hideous, hairless, starved-looking creatures."

  "Tastes differ," said Thorolf. "Anyway, Gak and I have found how you and your warriors can invade the Sophonomist stronghold and destroy this menace once and for all."

  "Eh? Ye mean for us to trail through the tunnels and pop out of the hole behind that picture? Never! Those magicians would blast us with their spells. If those failed, their armored guards would fall upon us. We should be lucky if any got away alive. Besides, they probably know about the tunnel now and will have blocked it, or at least placed guards at the entrance."

  "I doubt that. I called out a misdirection ere they broke into the Chamber of Audience, to send them out the other door as if we had fled by the main gate. Gak and I heard no pursuit in the tunnel."

  "Ah! But Orlandus is clever. When the gate guards said none had passed them, he would know ye had left some other way and command a search, if indeed he have not already discovered the tunnel by his magical arts."

  Thorolf argued some more, trying to arouse in the Chief an eagerness to raid the Sophonomist headquarters and slaughter the lot—except Yvette, of course. But Wok remained adamant.

  "Too much risk," he said. "We can fight you feeble, hairless lowlanders on even terms; but we have no magic like unto yours. At the bruit of the battle, your soldiers might come to investigate. When they saw the Sophonomists fighting us whom they deem beasts, they would join in against us. We are a small people and cannot afford to lose men.

  "Besides, your lowland female might be slain. Even if I told my warriors to spare her, in the confusion they would strike at every yellow robe. Ye lowlanders all look alike to us."

  Thorolf sighed and gave up; but during the following days his resolution crystallized to make his next demarche against Sophonomy alone. The last time, he had impulsively plunged in without proper precautions and had accomplished nothing save to alert the cultists against intrusion. He was lucky to have escaped intact, and Gak had been right to call him a fool.

  Since Thorolf was not normally impulsive, he wondered at his own rashness. It must, he thought, be a case of the power of love. Doctor Vipsanio at Genuvia had spoken of the crazy deeds into which love can lead one. Thorolf resolved that next time, he would leave nothing more to chance than he could help. He began by sending another letter to his father.

  On the appointed day, when the light powdering of an early snow was melting off the ground, he found the consul seated on a folding chair beside their special pool and fishing. But Zigram was not alone. With him on another stool sat Chief Constable Lodar.

  Thorolf hesitated, wondering if they meant to arrest him. To reassure himself, he scouted stealthily around, using all the skills that his soldierly experience and his sojourn among the trolls had taught him. He discovered five guards, sitting in a hollow near their tethered horses and casting dice.

  Well, he thought, if they should try to spring a surprise, he could probably outrun the lot, since he was younger than either Zigram or Lodar and not laden with mail like the guards. Taking a deep breath, he stepped out from behind the same spruce sapling that had concealed Yvette on their first meeting.

  "Hail!" he said.

  "Kernun's toenails!" cried Zigram, dropping his fishing rod. "Startle me not so, son! Wherefore have ye dragged us elders up here now?"

  "Information," said Thorolf. "Am I wanted for Bar-di's death?"

  "Only as a witness; and Gunthram hath posted your name as absent without leave. When the Carinthian rascals found some hedge-wizard to open Bardi's chest, one got drunk on his share of the loot and boasted he'd buy a dukedom. He was heard in a tavern; so he's in durance awaiting the rope; whilst his mates, we presume, have fled back to Carinthia.

  "The constables scoured the countryside, seeking a hunchback who, calling himself Bardi's apprentice, was thought to have been either Bardi's slayer or your confederate in the deed; but the Carinthian's boast disproved that surmise.

  "When come ye back to answer the justicers' questions and resume your post? We are not fain to hang the rascal until we have your tale to complete the puzzle with the final piece. I've told Colonel Gunthram ye fled at my command, to look into a plot against the Commonwealth and that, therefore, ye be liable to no penalties. Methinks he believed me not, but he durst not call me liar to my face."

  "You mentioned that the last time we met," said Thorolf
. "But what news of Sophonomy? I am sure the Commonwealth has a spy amongst Orlandus' guards."

  Zigram and Lodar exchanged glances. The Chief Constable spoke: "Daily their influence grows. Methinks at least a third of my constables be under Orlandus' thumb. When one of their folk is brought to book, they frighten judges, juries, and witnesses into inaction, letting the miscreants go free."

  The Consul added: "A curious tale hath come to our ears, Thorolf. It is that, within the past fortnight, Orlandus and his deputy, an old mountebank and street fighter calling himself Doctor Parthenius, encountered your Countess fleeing along a corridor in the castle, pursued by you and a troll. The Psychomage, who knew you not at once, warded off your attack by a spell, whereupon ye twain—ye and the troll—utterly vanished. Although all exits are guarded, none saw you emerge; nor did a search of the edifice discover you.