by Robert Adams
Quite by accident, he had stumbled into the subterranean ways during the siege when an overshot catapult stone had demolished some of the charred timbers and fire-blackened bricks of the once splendid mansion above his chamber of horrors. These were quite unlike the great tunnels under Morguhnpolis, being no more than six feet high and five wide, unpaved and shored up by old, rotting timbers. The main passage ran from east to south on a gradual curve, ending at each extremity against the damp stones of the city walls, and it was unblocked from one end to the other. Such was not true of many of the branch passages. Danos had found that many had collapsed and others seemed so close to collapse that he had feared to enter them.
But that had been before the increasing security within the city and the steady pressure from the satanic vahrohnos had so complicated his existence. Now he regularly trod fearfully beneath sagging, wormy timbers and even wriggled through partially blocked passages in search of access to fresh prey. The arm leading to the Citadel, though not paved, was at least walled and shored with granite, probably because of the immense weight of masonry above it. It debouched into a disused subcellar room, only four levels below the prison corridor off which was located the vahrohnos’ cell, which fact was the sole reason, aside from inordinate amounts of pure luck, that Danos had not long since been apprehended.
Both of his close escapes had occurred when Danos was returning to the Citadel in the early morning. If, as in the old days, he had come back smeared from head to foot with the blood of his night’s victim, the jig would have been up. But Danos had begun to take precautions to minimize the possibility of discovery and, having come across a small, spring-fed cistern in the main passage, he always thoroughly cleansed himself, his armor and his clothing after each of his forays.
No, what had most frightened him about the encounters with Citadel guards had been that, on each occasion, he had been carrying back the “delicacies” demanded by the vahrohnos. And had the guards ever chosen to examine the two sealed jars, there would have been no possible way that Captain Danos could have explained why one was brimful of fresh blood, while the other contained a whole human liver, still warm.
It had been after that second episode in the lower corridors that he had finally convinced the mad vahrohnos that he could no longer take the risk of carrying the “delicacies” into the Citadel.
After an impossibly long moment of glowering at his warder from eyes deep-sunk in his ruined face, Myros of Deskati had smiled, albeit wolfishly. “It is in moments of extreme danger that breeding becomes apparent, and you have no trace of breeding, you lowborn swine. But I had been expecting this funk of yours, soon or late, and I have devised an alternate plan, one which will give you far less to fear . . . well, from the guards, anyway.”
* * *
Since Vaskos had refused to alter or lessen his long, work-filled hours, Ahlee had done what he felt to be both professional duty and the duty of a friend; he had been helping the harried commander with the paperwork, of nights. Nor was this a difficult undertaking for the Zahrtohguhn, for, combined with a high degree of intelligence and both a written and verbal command of most dialects of Mehrikan, Ahlee had a natural talent for and formal training in mindspeak so that he could resolve any questions by dipping into Vaskos’ deliberately unshielded mind.
So it was, on an evening six days after his last autopsy, that a breathless, red-faced sergeant found them both together in Vaskos’ bright-lit office a couple of hours after midnight.
The sergeant was not an ex-rebel but rather a grizzled Confederation Regular, and he behaved accordingly despite his agitation — this quite obvious to Ahlee’s trained eye. Upon being bidden to enter, he stalked stiffly across the room, his well-oiled armor clanking, his helm cradled in the crook of his shield arm. At the halt, he wheeled precisely to face the desk and, standing rigid as a post, slammed fist against breast in formal military salute.
Glancing up from under his bushy salt-and-pepper brows, Vaskos returned the salute. “Yes, sergeant? You have a report?”
In a firm, emotionless voice, the noncom replied, “My lord strahteegos, I be Company Sergeant Dahbzuhn of Number Three Company, Fourteenth Regiment, seconded to your lordship’s command and now serving under Lieutenant Gahloopohlos. The noble lieutenant bids me request your lordship’s presence in the north quarter of the city. And it please your lordship, immediately.”
The lieutenant was tall but slender, his dark hair and olive complexion attesting to his Ehleen antecedents. His were no rolling, bulging muscles, but he moved with an assurance and grace which Ahlee suspected emanated from considerable wiry strength. The young man was soft-voiced and respectful to his superior but with no trace of fawning.
“My lord strahteegos, knowing how intense be your interest in these murders, I took the liberty of sending for you. This may well be a discovery of importance.”
The one-eyed man, summoned from a small knot of fellow civilians, completed his tale a few minutes later. “So, like I a’ready done told the lieutenant, Lord Vaskos, after I seen the man knock Moynah in the head and put her over his shoulder, I follered him, ’th out him seeing me, o’course; I ain’t brave, ’specially as I seen he had a big dirk.
“I seen him carry her into this here empty house, then I run back and got these here other fellers together and while one feller went to look for the p’trol, we got us some torches and clubs and a few knives and went to save her. But, when we got to the house, won’t nary a sign of either one of ’em, ’cept just a little bit of blood just inside the door and a little more on the steps going down to the basement, was all. Then, ’bout that time, the lieutenant and the p’trol got here.”
With a brusque nod of thanks to the old man, Vaskos turned on the junior officer. “It comes to my mind that the killer, if such it was, knew that he was being followed and ducked into the house until he was certain that the observer had gone. Could that be possible, lieutenant?”
With a typically Ehleenic shrug, Gahloopohlos answered, “Highly possible, lord strahteegos. And I considered it, too, especially when my men found no living creature in the house . . . and we searched it from top to bottom. But that was before we chanced across what I wish to now show your lordship.”
The cellar was old, obviously much older than the house above, larger, too, walled and floored with dressed stone, like the worn stairs which led down to it Droplets of blood were at the head of those stairs, a few more were at the bottom, and yet another sprinkling was at a spot near the east wall of the cellar, along with a faded scrap of fine woolen cloth.
“When first I came down here, my lord, this bit of cloth was protruding from between two of the wall stones. I thought it odd and examined the wall more closely. As my lord may know, my father is lord architect of Kehnooryos Atheenahs. My brothers and I often accompanied him in his duties in that and other cities, so I have some small knowledge of things which might not occur to the thinking of your average officer.
“Look around you, my lord. This cellar is clearly of older and finer construction than the structure upstairs, and it’s at least half again bigger. The original structure was no doubt stone as well, stone and timber, and it burned. If my lord will look up there, near the ceiling, he still can see the fire marks. That structure was never rebuilt, but its foundation, including this cellar, was used for the brickwork house still standing.”
“What.” demanded Vakos, “has all this to do with our elusive murderer, lieutenant?”
With a languid, assured smile, the officer replied, “Please bear with me, my lord. Now, when these frontier cities were built, often the citadels and walled mansions were completed before the city walls even were commenced. So, since the residents and garrisons were often in constant danger of barbarian attack, they frequently devised ways of communicating one with the other, of getting supplies or reinforcements to hard-pressed areas quickly and safely, of —”
Vaskos’ big fist smacked into his horny palm and his black eyes flashed. “Tunne
ls! Of course! That’s why we’ve never caught the bastard, or even seen him, despite streets crowded with patrols. I must be getting senile, lieutenant I should have thought of it ere this.”
Young Gahloopohlos showed a rueful grin. “Then I fear I must share my lord’s senility, for even with my experience, I gave no thought to the matter until it slapped me in the face.”
Vaskos nodded brusquely. “Well, we know now, good Gahloopohlos. It sounds reasonable to me. Let us get a squad down here with sledges and bars, get these stones down and see if we’re right.”
The officer shook his head. “Such measures are unnecessary, my lord. You see?” Sidling to a section of wall which looked no different from many other sections about the cellar, he placed both hands flat upon it and, bunching his body behind his shoulders, heaved. His feet slid back on the rough flooring as the wall section briefly resisted his strength, but then, with a ponderous grinding and a shriek of seldom-used metal, a man-length of wall swiveled to reveal a stygian-black rectangle from which emanated the cold, dank smell of sunless earth.
Vaskos waited for the arrival of additional men before he, Ahlee, the lieutenant and a squad of soldiers filed into the narrow tunnel. Only a few steps did they proceed, however, for the way was blocked by a mound of earth and chunks of soft, rotten timber. An aperture no more than two feet wide or high had been dug through the blockage, and there they found more blood and another shred of the same fine, woolen.
There was another wait, for not liking the look of the extant shoring, Vaskos had some of the soldiers repair the areas above and return with odds and ends to strengthen the worm-eaten boards and columns. Then, one at a time, holding their torches before them, the officers, the physician and a dozen men wriggled through the ten terrible suffocating feet of crumbling earth.
Beyond, the narrow tunnel continued for a few more paces, then entered at a right angle into a wider and better-shored tunnel which seemed to stretch infinitely away in two directions.
“Sun and Wind!” swore Vaskos, softly. “The bastard could have taken that poor woman in either direction.
There’s nothing else for it but to split up. Gahloopohlos, you take six men and head that way. The master and I will take five and head the other. Sergeant Dahbzuhn, go back to the cellar and get the other squad, less two men to stand guard. You bring five after me and send five after the lieutenant. And sergeant, all of you, make no unnecessary noise until the quarry’s in plain sight and, let’s hope, at bay. He surely knows these tunnels better than we do, and we can’t afford to miss him yet again.”
* * *
Arrived in his cellar, Danos had gone through the joyless motions — stripping and gagging the half-conscious woman, then securing her ankles and wrists to a large rectangle of strong wooden construction. He had fabricated the rectangle many long months before, during the early days of the siege. With a victim’s hands and feet lashed to its corners, the tenderest and most sensitive portions of the body were easily accessible to whip or knife, fingers or teeth, pincers or licking flame.
That detail attended to, he had employed the whip, pulping first the back, then turning the rectangle and its moaning, fainting occupant to lay open the tender breasts with the blood-wet lash. By this time, he should have been used to an audience, but he still was somewhat inhibited in his reactions by those darkly mad eyes staring from the corner; consequently, even when white ribs were showing through the lacerated, bleeding flesh of the woman’s chest, he still felt no pleasant, stirring warmth in his loins. Not until he had leaned the rectangle against a wall and commenced to rain whistling blows on inner thighs and on the pudenda itself did he experience the tardy tumescence.
When he arose from the ravaged body, his loins now slack, he privately suspected the woman to be already dead or so near death as to make no difference, but warily he made no mention of the fact. After adjusting his clothing, the slick, black leather facings all wet and red-sticky, he drew his military dirk and expertly opened the upper abdomen. Leaving the dirk by the body, he stood up and stepped back.
“Dinner is served, my lord.” He addressed the lurker in the shadowy corner. “I’m going above to watch for the patrol, as usual. Please signal when you’ve done, sir.”
On his way up the littered stairs, Danos tried hard not to hear the slurping noises.
Ahlee had lost count of the numbers of small side tunnels his party had explored. Their original torches had already guttered out and, had the practical sergeant not thought to have the reinforcements carry extras, they would all now be fumbling about in utter darkness. The physician’s jaws ached from the effort of keeping them clamped against the chattering of his teeth, for he like the rest found the dank chill of these passages harder to bear than the icy weather aboveground.
They had slowly proceeded up the left-hand side of the large tunnel, come at length to a blank wall of rough-hewn granite which Vaskos had opined to be probably the foundation of part of the city walls. Now they were working back down the other side. As Ahlee, moving just behind Vaskos and the sergeant, came abreast of yet another side tunnel, he became unpleasantly conscious of a palpable emanation of purest evil radiating from the depths of that narrow passage, its uncleanness and power making him sick and dizzy.
“Vaskos!” he whispered, croakingly, pulling at the burly officer’s sleeve. “In there, I think. If not what we seek, at least something. . . something of terrible wrongness.”
All the still-unblocked side tunnels were very similar in construction-twenty to thirty feet long, about six feet high and three wide-but the differences in this one were quickly apparent. The shoring was all new, the upper areas of it stained with torch soot, and they trod not bare earth but paving tiles . . . splotched here and there with dark brownish stains which clearly were not soot. A small chamber always lay at the cellar end of these side tunnels. This one contained a pile of fresh torches and a heap of torn and gore-stiffened rags which, on closer examination, proved to all be various articles of women’s clothing.
Ahlee hoped that he would never again see such a look on his friend’s face as Vaskos dropped a ripped, crusty shift, drew his sword and motioned for two soldiers to open the wall section which led to the cellar.
Some of these sections had been completely immovable, some had yielded only after long and difficult labor, but this one swung easily and noiselessly open . . . laying before their eyes a scene of unrelieved ghastliness.
The cellar was brightly lit by a couple of torches and several lamps. Warmth was provided by a pair of large braziers. His back to the newcomers, a man’s figure crouched over the spread-eagled body of a gagged woman. Her wide-open eyes were death-glazed and set in a reflection of agony beyond endurance, horror beyond belief. What could be seen of her body and legs brought the sour bile bubbling up into Ahlee’s throat, for all that he had closely examined so many cavaders with identical savageries imprinted in their cold flesh.
A red-smeared dirk was held loosely in the crouching man’s right hand, while his left held what appeared to be a lump of fresh organ meat. While they watched-battle-hardened soldiers shocked into stillness and silence by the unnatural spectacle before them — the man drove the dirk into a timber of the blood-encrusted torture frame to which the dead woman’s stiffening limbs were still bound, laid the piece of meat upon the pulpy red ruin which had been her breasts, did something with his freed hands, then bent his neck and lowered his head. The terrible sound which then smote their ears was that of beast, not of mankind. Of beast busily lapping!
Vaskos, too, sounded then like a beast, growling deep in his throat. He stalked forward, cat-light, his swordblade at low guard, ready for stab or slash. The sergeant and other soldiers advanced behind him, filling the width of the cellar from wall to wall with an inexorably moving wall of armored, steel-tipped bodies.
But the feeding beast heard the growls and shufflings as they neared him and whirled about, his pallid face and graying beard a single nauseous mask of clotting blo
od, madness glinting its evil from out his bloodshot black eyes, his broken and rotting red-stained teeth bared in a bestial snarl of rage. Jerking the dirk from the timber, he hurled himself at Vaskos, the foremost of these intruders.
His own lips skinned back in a grimace of savage joy, the officer set himself for a thrust. With a habitual stamp and shout, the long blade swept up and the muscular arm extended, but the sharp steel met empty air and Vaskos almost fell on his face on the blood-slick floor, whereon lay the suddenly senseless hulk of Vahrohnos Myros Deskati of Morguhn, but bare feet from the ravaged corpse whose liver he had torn out, whose blood he had been drinking.
Some two hours after these events, with the madman once more securely manacled in his cell and guarded by grim Regulars, Vaskos again sat behind his desk, glowering at Captain Danos. The former rebel officer’s baldric draped loosely, the cased sword it had held now hand-carried by one of the husky guardsmen who flanked him. On a cloth on the desk lay the partially cleaned dirk which had been taken from the vahrohnos in that cellar of terrors.
They had had the captain’s story. Now Vaskos bluntly spake his mind. “Captain, you are either a careless, feckless fool or a cunning, glib-tongued monster. I confess that I know not which, at this point. I’d like to think you the latter, but that’s because I hate you for reasons that you well know.
“The fact that this dirk fits your empty case really proves nothing, since both are Confederation Army issue. Your charge lies comatose in his cell, so it will be days ere we can question him. Not that that exercise will prove anything either, for I’d not convict even such as you on the unsupported word of a madman.
