He nodded, though she could not see. The blackness was total, and her words explained why. They explained, too, the closeness, the dampness, the thin quality of the air — as well as her greeting, “Rich air.” They were in something akin to an alligator den — or was it crocodile? They were under the water — but they weren’t.
He was sure the question was hardly worth asking, remembering her appearance:
“Is this where you live, Siraa?”
Again the liquid giggle. “It is a road to where I live, yes. We do not live in darkness, Skyman Cleve. We live beneath you, and enter Orisana only via the water, but we have light in our city.”
City! Orisana: “water land.” Yes. Be prepared for anything, he told himself. Accept anything. Mermaids and merpeople — why not, on Andor!
“Are you taking me to your people, Siraa? To Orisana?”
“Oh, no! They would kill you, or at best enslave you. There are but a few others among us, some of the Tree-men, and Oridorns. All are slaves. No — I will take you back, up through the water, to the shore opposite the Tree-men — I have never seen any of them on the other side. But — as you said, you owe me this life, Cleve. I lay claim.”
Into the total darkness he said, “To my life?”
“On, no!” She was suddenly close against him, all young feminine curves and soft hands, and he learned what he had not noticed in the water. He could not stifle a shudder; her flesh was cold!
“No, Skyman Cleve. I — I have watched the Tree-men, long I’ve watched, in fascination, even though they are little more than beasts. But — the pretty color of their skin, and their hair and eyes — and yours. Today I saw you, and came to help. I do not want your life — you must give me only of your life. Warm me, with the warmth you people from above possess in your bodies.” And she snuggled close.
Cold or not, she was passionate and intensely female in the darkness, and he warmed her, giving her a small measure of his life while she crooned and clung tightly to him.
Then she sighed and rose, clinging to his hand, warm with the warmth he had injected, and suddenly there was light, flickering and yellow, and she gave a little cry and squeezed his hand in her chill one.
“Siraa!” The voice was male. “We were — ah! You’ve brought us one of those from above! It is a muscular one — is it alive?”
Cleve rolled over, then rose slowly to face the possessor of the new voice.
There were five of them crowding the underground passage that rose behind them in the darkness. There was no darkness here, not now. In his left hand each man but the first held aloft an intensely bright, radiant torch. In his right hand each held one of the white fins such as the girl had; theirs, too, were strapped into their palms. It occurred to Cleve that thus they could be constantly armed, although the carrying of the bony dagger would not interfere in the least with their swimming. Their fingers and toes, like Siraa’s, were webbed, and their hair white. So was their skin very pale, as if they had never seen or felt the light of the sun; they probably had not. These people lived solely beneath the land, within Andor, gaining access to their Orisana only via the tunnel or tunnels into the water.
They, too, wore the thin strip of unidentifiable, glistening black about their hips, but they were not wholly nude as was Siraa. Two more strips depended from the “belt,” attached to a pouch or codpiece covering the groin. For protection while swimming, Cleve thought, and for support. Two more straps ran down from the bottom of the codpiece each man wore, between his thighs and up in back to secure again to the belt. They wore nothing else, aside from expressions of acute unfriendliness.
The jet pupils of their round eyes looked all the blacker because of the total lack of color surrounding them. They were the strangest eyes he had ever seen. They were the eyes of fish. They all stared at Cleve.
He considered escape and discarded the idea. There was but one way to go — past the four fin-armed men into the land of Orisana. He stripped his gaze from the leader’s left fist with difficulty; the Orisan held a sword, and it appeared to be steel or iron.
“It is both muscular and alive,” Cleve said quietly. “It is also grateful. Siraa of Orisana saved me from the Tree-men who sought to kill me. They are my enemies, they are your enemies. We should be friends.”
The foremost Orisan, with the metal sword, smiled. “Friends?” He glanced at his companions. They grinned. “It wants to be our friend,” he said, and laughed.
The girl stepped quickly past Cleve, lifting her hands in remonstrance. “Zivaat — this is a man, as you are. Only a little different. And you can easily see he is not of the Treefolk. He is a Skyman. The Tree-men were trying to capture him. You know why. He is wondrous warm, and — ”
The Orisan leader, the merman she called Zivaat, twisted his face in sudden anger. His empty left hand snaked out to slap her across the face. Her long mass of white hair, still wet, flailed as she stumbled back into Cleve. He stopped her with his hands on her shoulders, steadying her. Then he set the girl aside and took a long stride forward.
Zivaat was unprepared for the attack; unprepared for the rocklike fist that slammed into his jaw. He spun half around as he staggered back into his fellows. Cleve plucked the curved sword from the dazed Orisan’s hand with ease. He stepped quickly back, putting back a hand to steer Siraa out of the way. He hefted the scimitarlike weapon, getting its feel, testing its weight.
“There isn’t room in this passage for all of you to come at me massed,” he snapped. “Come one at a time, then, if you dare, and you die one at a time! Zivaat, save them. Order them not to advance!”
Half-supported by one of his men, Zivaat stared at him in obvious amazement.
“Hear me, men of Orisana. Because we live below the ground or above it, because there are some few physical differences between us … these are not reasons for us to be enemies. I am as much a stranger and enemy to those cannibals you call Tree-men as you. I come from far to the north. We have no quarrel. Siraa befriended me, saved my life. Allow me to visit you, or leave you, as you wish. But let us do it in peace.” He looked at none of them save Zivaat.
“But — you are not one of us,” Zivaat said. “You are not like us! We — how can we be friends? We are men, and you — ”
Cleve smiled. “I am a man also,” he said. “Something happened, long ago. Your people were perhaps trapped here. Without sun, you hair and skin lost its pigmentation. I can’t explain your eyes, but because you must swim to leave your underground homes, you developed webbing on your hands and feet.” He shrugged. “We’re both men, Zivaat. Just … slightly different. Men need not always be enemies, because they are different.”
Zivaat continued to stare, but if anything his huge, pellucid eyes were wider; something Cleve had said had horrified the merman. Cleve wondered what he could possibly have said to be so offensive. Then Zivaat spun, to tear a torch from the hand of one of his followers. Almost in the same motion, almost without pausing, the merman swung back. The unnaturally bright torch whooshed as it rushed at Cleve’s face. He threw up an arm and ducked, going to one knee to avoid the flying firebrand. Behind him, Siraa shrieked. He wheeled quickly, thinking the hurled torch must have struck her.
It had not. She was struggling desperately, hopelessly, against a wet black cable the thickness of Cleve’s arm. It was wrapped twice about her lithe body, rising up the declivity from the water below, and something was pulling it steadily tighter. Black and wet and glistening, it vanished down into the darkness.
“Llico!” one of the men cried. “A llico has Siraa!”
It was then Cleve realized there was no man down there, pulling Siraa down; it was a river monster, a creature with at least one long, black tentacle! Now be saw it, or at least he spotted its head; three yellow eyes seemed to iridesce in the blackness down the incline. The woman was being pulled down to them, and whatever jaws went with them.
Again she shrieked, and Cleve’s movement was pure reflex. He got to his feet, swinging up th
e scimitar as he sprang toward her. The sword flashed down, and his arm quivered as the blade struck the thick tentacle with a wet, chunking sound. The sword bit half through the ropy black arm, bringing a roar as of a dozen lions from the darkness below. Cleve had to lay hold of the hilt with both hands to free his sword, amid a welter of indigo ichor that bubbled up from the wound. He swung up his blade and struck again.
Inexpert, he did not land his great chopping blow in the same place. He cut a new slice deep into the tentacle. Again he had to wrench his blade free. Siraa’s screams had stilled; even wounded, the powerful tentacle gripped her so tightly she could no longer muster the breath to cry out. Robert Cleve swung back the sword — and nearly fell. Another ropy tentacle had snaked up from the blackness, broken only by those three xanthous eyes, to snap around his ankle. Once, twice, three times the terrible cable wrapped, and it was cold, cold as death. And strong, tightening. He felt his leg start to throb.
But he ignored the new menace, the danger of himself, slashing down again at the octopoid arm enwrapping Siraa’s slender waist. This time he clove through it. Purple ichor gouted as the severed black arm plopped to the hard-packed, damp floor of the tunnel.
Suddenly released, Siraa lurched and spun up the acclivity toward her rescuer. Then she fell, tearing away with her hands that portion of the tentacle still enwrapping her.
Dragged down by the tentacular cable about his ankle, Cleve tried to shift, to chop down at it. He slipped, fell. Immediately he felt himself dragged powerfully down toward those unblinking yellow eyes and the terrible mouth he knew must accompany them.
He heard the cries, saw the flash of hairless white legs past his face. He heard the thwocking sound of sword biting into pulpy flesh. The tentacle loosened about his ankle, then tightened spasmodically. Realizing that someone had yanked the scimitar from his fingers and was using it to save his life, Cleve fought to stay conscious against the pain searing up his leg. Again the sound of sword sinking into the river monster’s serpentine arm. This time Cleve knew the second tentacle had been chopped from the creature the mermen called a “llico.”
Strong hands seized his wrists and he was jerked up the damp incline as again the monster roared from the darkness below.
No one seemed to notice as the Orisan who had jerked the sword from Cleve’s hand to save him with it — now returned it to him!
Cleve lay on the damp, slippery floor of the inclined cavern and watched as two thrown torches whooshed downward. For an instant he saw the globate, black head with its three yellow eyes, the gaping, many-fanged mouth. Then one of the torches vanished into that hideous maw, and the creature’s roar became a shriek. It shot backward and disappeared. The second torch lay on the glistening wet ground, flickering.
Slowly Robert Cleve looked up. Then down at his sword. He dropped it. He held up his empty hand.
“I am Cleve. I owe you this life.”
“I am Vilaat. I free you from debt. You saved Siraa.” The man who had chopped him free accepted his hand and helped him up. Then he stepped between Cleve and the leader, Zivaat.
“Cleve is my friend,” Vilaat said.
Zivaat looked past the man, over his shoulder at Cleve. He nodded. “Cleve is our friend.”
“I offer apology for striking Zivaat,” Cleve said, “and bow my head to challenge and invective.”
“Foregone,” Zivaat said. For a moment they gazed at each other; Vilaat stepped aside. Moving slowly, Cleve bent and picked up the sword he had snatched from Zivaat’s hand. He returned it.
“Shall I come with you to Orisana? I’d like to prevail on you for some food,” Cleve said, suddenly feeling extremely hungry.
Zivaat frowned a little; the Orisans exchanged looks.
“Yes,” Zivaat said. “Come.”
Wondering at the glances, Cleve followed the mermen and the one remaining torch up the incline. At his side walked the strange-eyed, web-digited girl Siraa, her hip rubbing his at every other step. Ahead lay darkness, and somewhere within the earth — the andor — lay Orisana, subterranean city of the merpeople.
9 - The Underground City of Orisana
They were short on imagination, the merpeople of the subterranean land of Orisana. But Cleve could not condemn them. They were Stone Age folk who had never seen the sun. They subsisted on fish and mushrooms and the strange orange fruits that grew in their underground demesne. Stone Age, but they were not barbaric, although their “clothing” was little more than ornamentation. What other need was there, in a land of always-warmth? Only a need dictated by an anti-people religion, which they did not seem to possess — or be possessed by. Architecture? There was none.
Cleve wondered how it had got here, this Brobdingnagian cavern. It stretched for miles; if it had always been here, surely it had been widened by men, or perhaps dividing walls knocked laboriously out to connect the many tunnels that had existed here, time out of mind.
Centuries? How long, Cleve mused, had the Orisans been here? What had they been like, in the beginning? Natural evolution was not the only explanation for their differences, he was certain. True, they had no need of pigmentation in hair or skin or iris here, where the sun never shone. But they really had little need of webbed digits, just as the women of the western portion of Earth had no need of the breasts they no longer used to nourish their offspring. Perhaps the Orisans were far older than Orisana. Perhaps they had been aquatics, long, long ago.
But a possible cause of mutation was obvious here, and Cleve stared about and up at it.
Orisana existed in twilight, permanent twilight, rather than subterranean darkness. The walls of the enormous cavern glowed. What luminous substance was there Cleve had no way of knowing; perhaps it emitted radiation, perhaps it did not. But … if it did … then the physical strangeness of the Orisans was explained. They were radioactive mutants! And — he was in danger here.
Not until later was he to learn more about the source of the luminescence, and its extraordinary properties.
Orisana was a twilit city existing upon rock, beneath rock, within rock, walled by rock. It was a vast openness, with no structures marring the grassless underground plain. It was dotted with boulders and rocks in many shapes, that plain. There were a few structures, poor things of peeled wood brought here laboriously from above, down through the water. And there was much use of fishbone, and scaly “hides,” and gut, or strips of fishhide. There was much use, too, of the leathery black outer flesh of the river monster they called llico, and of other parts of its huge body, including bone and whole, dried tentacles. The rocks and boulders had been cut, sanded, planed, pierced — God, he mused, how long that must take them, with nothing to work with but bone and fin and rock!
The “city” was within the walls. The dwellings were in the scores, hundreds of dark tunnels radiating from the huge central cavern. Many of them were well above floor level (or plain level). These were reached by steps cut into the rock, or by ladders made of poles and bones, bound with gut and llico tentacles, or strips from the llico’s leathery hide.
Cleve knew they had ascended, he and the mermaid Siraa and the mermen Zivaat and Vilaat and the other three pale-eyed, white-haired, white-skinned Orisans. But, he thought, looking up, surely they had not been down so far as to account for that vastly high ceiling!
No, they must be within a mountain, with natural tunnels — old watercourses — leading out into the river.
They came clustering about him, and the Orisans with him were kept busy explaining over and over that he was guest, not captive. He ignored the taunts and insults of those who trouped to them, ignored them as best he could. People were always braver in concert, more bold and ready to insult and spit and strike and hurl whatever came to hand — if that sort of cowardice could be called bravery. They were always more willing, too, to hurl their invective and missiles at those who were different — and even more particularly when he who was different was naked, unarmed, and surrounded by armed guards.
His
tormentors, of course, were, in the main women and children; most of the men in Orisana were too busy to waste time trying to elevate themselves by pretending that another was lower.
But Zivaat and Vilaat had accepted him without reservation. True, their accent was strange, but they spoke Andoran, the almost-universal language of this planet. And at least some of their customs were the same as those outside their self-contained world.
“I owe you this life,” Cleve had said ritually, for this was knowledge implanted in his brain on Earth, not necessarily a part of the memory of Doralan Andrah, the memory he did not possess.
“I free you from debt,” Vilaat had replied. It had been the Orisan’s decision to make; he could have said, “I lay claim,” meaning that Cleve must grant him a boon, even the life itself. Since Vilaat had saved that life, it was his, until he either returned it to Cleve by pronouncing the words “I free you from debt” or until the debt was discharged to his satisfaction. He might well have said, as may have been expected, “I defer claim.” This would have meant that he did indeed make claim but would press it later, at his leisure. The saved, in honor, must accept that he would be presented with a petition by his savior — one he must grant, even if it meant his death.
It was an uncomplicated code, and a fair one. “I free you from debt” meant just that. The savior made absolutely no claim on him he’d saved, and never would, in honor. Indeed, it would be disgraceful for him ever again to mention his having performed the service. One did not remind one’s beneficiaries of one’s benefactions on Andor.
Thus, on barbaric Andor, the performer of a service or favor could not remind the recipient over and over of his obligation, as was the case on civilized Earth.
Then there was the second exchange that had taken place between Robert Cleve and the fish-eyed men of Orisana.
Chieftain of Andor Page 6
