The Towers Of Melnon rb-15

by Джеффри Лорд

  «I see. I see indeed. And you think that Mir-Kasa cares only for her own power, nothing for the Low People or for the future of Melnon as one people?»

  «I think it sticks out like one of the Towers of Melnon themselves,» said Blade flatly.

  Bryg-Noz stepped forward and clapped both his hands to Blade's shoulders. «Then I think we understand each other. If you had thought Mir-Kasa really cared for anything else but her own future. — «

  «Well, you said no more threats. So I will not make any. But I will ask you this. Would you care to join us and help us to make Melnon a city of free people, neither High nor Low, only of the Towers of Melnon? An end to the wars, an end to the War Wisdom, an end to the Peace Wisdom and our use of knowledge only to benefit a few?»

  «That sounds like an ambitious program.»

  «It is. But what else can we do? Melnon today is frozen into a tight mold. If we can break the mold, and put something better in its place-«

  «Can you put something better in its place?»

  «We can try,» said Bryg-Noz simply.

  If Bryg-Noz had said anything else, Blade would still have joined the man's movement to «make Melnon a city of free people.» But he would have joined it simply as a means of staying alive until he could get back to home dimension. Preferably with one of the great wands under his arm, but above all with a whole skin. That was as much as he could reasonably hope to bring back to home dimension from this dimension of rule-bound fanatics.

  However, Bryg-Noz was an honest man. He had no illusions about his ability to sweep away all of Melnon's past and build its future single-handedly. But he was willing to try. And that kind of revolutionary rather appealed to Blade. Men like that did not operate on the principle of «kill everybody who's against you, and hope there will be enough left to build something bright, shiny, and new.» If Bryg-Noz came to rule in Melnon, the Towers might be doing a good deal better than exchanging one bloody tyranny for another.

  So Blade thrust out his hand to Bryg-Noz, and they shook hands until Blade wondered if his arm was going to fall off. Then Bryg-Noz sat down again and gave Blade the explanation the Englishman had been hoping for ever since Kun-Rala dragged him through the doorway.

  Obviously Queen Mir-Kasa had no notion of what Bryg-Noz and the other leaders were planning to do with her private army. The revolutionaries were perfectly willing to go along with the queen up to a point-certainly they were willing to overthrow the rule of the High People in the other towers. This was bound to be a bloody mess, but was there any choice? But when the Tower of the Serpent ruled in Melnon, then the ruler of that tower would suddenly find herself-unemployed.

  In pursuit of their own goals, Bryg-Noz and his comrades were recruiting among the real Low People, as well as the degraded High People sent down by Mir-Kasa. Instead of the two hundred they had mentioned to Mir-Kasa, they had well over four hundred reliable people and a list of sympathizers four times that strong.

  That had been the plan up until today. But with Nris-Pol on the march, plans obviously had to be changed. If Nris-Pol had the kind of power Blade's story suggested he had, the «underground» days of safety among the Low People were about over. Nris-Pol could send spies to the low levels just as well as Queen Mir-Kasa. And when he had discovered what was going on, he could levy a charge of treason against Mir-Kasa herself. Blade had seen what that sort of charge could do. Mir-Kasa would be lucky to escape with her life, and Nris-Pol would rule in the Tower of the Serpent.

  And then he would surely find the work chamber where the great wands were stored. What a man like Nris-Pol would do with hundreds of wands that could blast a warrior into red mist at a hundred feet or more was obvious. Tens of thousands of both High and Low People would die when he set out to conquer Melnon, whether he succeeded or not.

  Obviously, therefore, the Tower of the Serpent could not shelter the movement much longer. They would have to pack up and flee.

  «To the Tower of the Leopard?» asked Blade.

  Bryg-Noz jumped up in astonishment. «How did you guess?»

  Blade shrugged. «I keep my eyes open. They looked as if they were trying very much to be different from the other towers. And I heard people talk. The Leopards, they say, worry less about High and Low People, and keeping both in their places.»

  «They do,» said Bryg-Noz. «So they are the only people we can turn to.»

  «What are they going to think about becoming involved in a war against all the other Towers of Melnon?» asked Blade.

  «When we show them the great wands, and tell them about Nris-Pol — well, I think they will at least listen. Whether we can convince them or not-that is another matter. But first we must get our people out of this tower, and over to the Tower of the Leopard.»

  That, as it turned out, would be relatively simple. There was a tunnel leading from one of the underground chambers to an entrance half a mile out in the Waste Land. It had been there since the tower was built, and had already been used several times by secret groups. Once out of the tunnel, there would be little trouble in making their way to the Tower of the Leopard. And then they would wait for morning, and ask the Leopards for entrance.

  «What about taking some of the great wands?» asked Blade. «I think the Leopards would like a demonstration. And they might come in handy as weapons to use when we return to the Tower of the Serpent.»

  «So they might,» said Bryg-Noz. «But Mir-Kasa allowed us only the one, and it has almost lost its power. She obviously did not trust us that much.»

  «Well,» said Blade, «then somebody had best go up to the work chamber and take a few of the wands with us the night we leave the tower. Who knows where it is, to guide me? I am the newest member of your group, so there is nothing you need me for in the matter of leaving the tower. I am the most expendable. I know the High Levels fairly well, and I am probably the strongest warrior in the Tower of the Serpent if it comes to a fight. But I do not expect that it will come to a fight. I have done this sort of thing before, in England and during my travels, and I have much experience at it.»

  Bryg-Noz shrugged. «I believe you, Blade-Liza, and I accept your offer. But you will need a companion, to guard your back.»

  «Let me go with him, Bryg-Noz,» said Kun-Rala. «He and I have fought together before. I can disguise myself as a warrior or a master and Blade can disguise himself as a servant that I am leading about. I can carry his weapons under my own clothes and he can wear a carrying frame to hold the wands.»

  «Very well,» said Bryg-Noz. «You two have described your duties for the night of the escape. Now we must begin planning for what everyone else will do.» He was not looking at Kun-Rala, so he did not notice the look in her eyes as she gazed at Blade. Blade did.

  So he was not particularly surprised when she came that same night to the small, sparsely furnished chamber he had been given. He was drifting quietly off to sleep on the hard mattress on the floor when the door quietly opened and Kun-Rala slipped in. She stood looking down at him, as his eyes opened wide and he sat up facing her.

  «What are you doing here?» he asked. He wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or amused.

  «I don't know what I am doing here now either,» she said with an impish grin. «But I know what I will be doing very soon.» She was wearing one of the Low People's green tunics, a normally ugly and shapeless garment that she had belted in to show off her slender waist and young thrusting breasts. Blade could not help letting his eyes stray to those hinted-at breasts, and in return Kun-Rala's eyes drifted over Blade's body. He had thrown off the blankets that had covered him, and was sitting naked on his mattress.

  Kun-Rala went over to the door and pulled it shut behind her. Then she came back over to the mattress and sat down at the foot. «I–I have not had much chance to be a woman, Blade. I have had to be a warrior for our cause for-for longer than I want to remember. I am proud of what skill I have as a warrior, even though I know it is not very much. But I want to learn to be a woman, Blade, and I think
you can teach me well.»

  Blade could not help feeling the beginnings of arousal, but he could also not help wondering if this was the time and place. «Kun-Rala, why now? We-«

  «Yes, we may die the night after tomorrow, Blade. We may die together, but that is not all I want us to do together. I want to learn from you more about how to be a woman before I die, if I am going to die that night.» She shivered and held out both slim calloused hands. «Please, Blade-Liza.»

  Blade did not need to say «Yes,» because his body was beginning to say it for him. And while Kun-Rala might want to know more about being a woman, she already knew enough to recognize a man's arousal when she saw it. She lay down on the mattress beside him, and her arms went around him. Blade could feel the lines of her body under the thin robe, and his own body said its «yes» even louder than before. She felt his stiffening maleness pressing up against her, and her lips curled in a smile.

  He took that smile as a welcome, and his hands moved almost of their own accord to the belt of her tunic. It was a simple length of cord; his powerful fingers had it undone within seconds. Kun-Rala raised her hands over her head as Blade's hands crept down her thighs and under the hem of the tunic. Then they crept back up again, caressing the smoothly curved flesh underneath, raising the robe as they came. A quick jerk, and the robe was off and flung in the corner. Kun-Rala wore nothing underneath it, and the dim light in the room gave her body a weirdly beautiful sheen.

  Now Blade's hands could roam freely all over that body, drawing small gasps from her as he touched sensitive areas. Her nipples were particularly responsive-dark delicate buds that sprang startlingly into solid life with a single brush of Blade's fingers. Kun-Rala gave a little choked «yes» as that happened, so Blade's fingers stayed on her nipples for a good long time, until she was gasping and writhing back and forth from that stimulus alone. At the same time her own hands were fumbling their way up and down Blade's body. Their touch was unsure and clumsy but delicate, and the unsureness, the sense that she was feeling her way, was in itself exciting to Blade. He felt a delicious ache growing in his groin, as Kun-Rala's hands crept down over the hard muscles of his stomach, to wrap themselves around him.

  But he did not stop his own hands, for he sensed that Kun-Rala needed yet more preparation before she would be lost enough in an erotic fog for him to take her easily. He left off caressing her nipples and gently squeezed and released her small, high-standing breasts in an accelerating rhythm. She threw her head back, and her eyes closed. Blade's other hand could feel the growing wetness between her gracefully rounded thighs. His hand probed that wetness, and Kun-Rala's hips began to jerk from side to side, slowly at first but then faster and faster.

  Eventually he saw and felt and heard that she was ready. He rolled over toward her, but as he did so, she rolled toward him, faster than he did. She swung up on top of him, he came up, she came down, and he entered her.

  She was so aroused and hungry that her first spasm came almost in the moment of entry. She threw her head back and clawed with both hands at her close-cut hair as her pelvic muscles quivered convulsively and wetness poured from her down around Blade's thrusting organ. Her head went back so far that Blade had the vague fear that her neck would snap. Then she sagged forward, until her swollen nipples almost touched Blade's sweat-soaked chest. But he did not stop rising and falling, and neither did she. So she reached a second climax, and then when she reached her third Blade reached his along with her, and their bodies thrashed and their breaths hissed and moaned together.

  She collapsed limply forward on to Blade's chest again, and this time she did not move for quite a while. Neither did he. Finally he found the breath to say, «Kun-Rala, you have been worrying about not knowing how to be a woman? You?» His tone of voice implied, «What an idiotic thing for you of all people to worry about!»

  She wriggled happily, understanding his meaning, and her arms went around him again. For a moment he thought she was trying to arouse him again. But she was not. Curled against his chest, she drifted quietly off to sleep, and shortly afterward so did Blade.

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  Blade adjusted the straps of the carrying frame until they were as comfortable as he could reasonably expect. Fortunately he wasn't going to have to carry this frame or its load more than a few miles. Two hours' brisk walking even in the darkness should take both him and Kun-Rala to the base of the Tower of the Leopard. There the people that Bryg-Noz was leading out through the secret tunnel should be waiting. And, he hoped, so would a friendly reception committee from the Tower of the Leopard.

  So far things had gone with almost perfect smoothness. Bryg-Noz was a sensible man; he had kept his plan simple. More than half of his people were to remain in the Tower of the Serpent, even more carefully hidden than before. They would be ready to go to work when the time came to take the tower. The most important two hundred would follow him out through the tunnel, to travel to the Tower of the Leopard, there to become the core of an «army of liberation.» They would travel by night and should be long gone by dawn tomorrow. Blade and Kun-Rala would make their way to the work chamber in whose walls the great wands were hidden, and collect a dozen or so of them. After that they would ride lifters down to the ground and join the other party.

  The plan was simple enough so that the number of things that could go wrong was merely large-not completely impossible. But there were still more dangers than Blade cared to think about. So he decided not to think about them, and turned to Kun-Rala.

  «Ready?»

  «Ready.» She pulled her administering wand from its scabbard on her master's belt, composed her face into a scowl, and gestured toward the stairs. Blade composed his own face into the properly submissive expression of one of the Low People and shuffled toward the door. If he could just keep that expression, he was reasonably sure that no one would recognize him. His skin was smeared with dirt and grease, and his head was shaved entirely bald.

  They climbed the secret stairway slowly, saving their wind and strength. Then they stepped out into the corridor, and headed for the Low People's shaft. Kun-Rala would have preferred to take the stairs the remaining four hundred feet up to the work chamber, but Blade had persuaded her otherwise. At this hour of the night there should be few people either High or Low moving about, except working parties like themselves. And the time and energy saved by using the shaft would be more than worth it, particularly if they had to fight. Blade hoped they wouldn't, but he couldn't be sure.

  They had to cover about two hundred feet of open corridor from the head of the stairs to the entrance to the shaft. They passed one working party of four Low People being herded along by a candidate master, who bowed to Kun-Rala but said nothing. This was encouraging-at least mildly so.

  There was no one in the shaft car that whisked them up to the work levels in the usual few seconds. And there was no one in the corridor outside the shaft door. But when they turned the bend in the corridor that led to the work chambers, they saw a guard standing before the main door to the chambers.

  Blade swore mentally and drew Kun-Rala flat against the wall. There was thirty feet of well-lit open floor between them and the guard, and only a foot or so between the guard and what was obviously a newly-installed alarm signal

  «This is new,» said Kun-Rala. «The High People have never bothered putting guards in these areas before.»

  «Just be thankful there's only one,» said Blade. «I think we can take him. If you will pull your robe down to the waist-«

  Kun-Rala's eyes opened as she stared at him.

  «Yes-strip to the waist. Then step out into the guard's view. He should keep his eyes on you for a few seconds. That will be all I need.»

  «You can't cross the whole floor before he sees you and gives the alarm, Blade.»

  «I'm not planning to,» said Blade with a grin. He patted his short sword. «This throws fairly well.» Then he patted Kun-Rala on her rear. «Hurry, now.» She looked up at him with an expression that
was not much short of worship, then undid the top of her robe and pulled it down until her breasts were bare. Slowly she stepped out into view, trying to give her body a sensuous sway. She was not very good at that, unfortunately.

  But she was good enough. The guard's eyes widened as he saw her gliding toward him, and his mouth opened wide. Then Blade stepped out into the open, and his short sword flashed in the light. There was a meaty chunk as it split the guard's face open. His shout of surprise turned to a whimpering gurgle, and he collapsed to the floor, his eyes and mouth still open.

  Without bothering to pull up her robe, Kun-Rala snatched a key from her belt pouch and opened the door to the work chambers. «Quick,» she said. «Drop him down the disposal shaft. If we leave him here, somebody may come. And if they find him here they'll start their search in the work chambers.» There was no strain or trembling in her voice or body now; she seemed entirely in control of herself.

  Blade nodded and hoisted the body onto his shoulders. As he did so, footsteps sounded behind him. He dropped the body to the floor, snatching the short sword from its face as he did so, and turned to face his enemy. Then he stopped dead. It was his turn to stare wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, and behind him he heard Kun-Rala gasp. Pen-Jerg stood before them, both swords drawn and an inquisitive smile on his bearded face.

  «Blade-Liza?» he said softly, though it was more of a statement than a question.

  Blade momentarily toyed with the idea of playing the dumb and uncomprehending Low Person. But he rejected the idea in the next moment. It would be a waste of time, and dangerous too. Pen-Jerg appreciated honesty. Well, he would get it.

  «Yes,» said Blade shortly.

  «You are not supposed to be here,» said Pen-Jerg mildly. «You could be administered for this, you know. And I suppose you killed the guard?»

  Blade nodded. He noted that Pen-Jerg had said «could» be administered, not «will» be. Then he shot back a question of his own, in a mildly sarcastic tone, «What are you doing here at this hour of the night, Pen-Jerg, brave commander? Are you inspecting the guard posts for Nris-Pol?»