The Forests Of Gleor rb-22

by Джеффри Лорд

  As Blade crawled back toward the main chamber, he realized that something was blocking off part of the entrance to the tunnel. A disagreeable thought flashed through Blade's mind. Had the guards come in to wait for his return and punish him for his curiosity?

  Blade gripped his bar more tightly and crawled onward. Gradually he saw that the light was being blocked by a human figure sitting inside the tunnel. A few yards farther on, and he recognized Princess Neena. He practically scrambled up the last stretch of tunnel, then stopped abruptly as he reached her.

  Neena's face was no longer set and expressionless. She was grinning broadly, and hugging her bare knees with both arms. Her shoulders shook with silent laughter. She looked as though she had either recovered from her numbness and apathy, or slipped out of apathy into madness.

  Chapter 7

  Blade's surprise must have showed on his face. Neena's eyes rose to meet his. Then she could no longer keep her laughter silent. She threw her head back and howled with laughter until the tears ran down her dirty face and the echoes ran up and down the tunnel.

  Finally the princess leaned back against the wall, gasping for breath, and sighed deeply. «Oh, warrior, I am sorry if I frightened you. But you looked so funny, staring at me like an ox staring at the butcher just before the axe comes down.»

  Blade let the unflattering description of him pass. «Well, my lady princess, do you wonder that I was deceived? You played your part with great skill.»

  «I had good reason to,» she said bluntly. «Can you deny that?»

  «No I-«

  «Then do not complain or find excuses for yourself. I intended to deceive you as well. You looked like a warrior and a man of sense, but I could not be sure you would be a friend, or even a neutral. You seem of no people I have ever seen or heard of. I could not be sure that you would not think to buy the favor of Lord Desgo by telling him of my deception. So I aimed to convince you as well as him. Do not feel small because I succeeded. You are right, I am a skilled actress.»

  Blade took a deep breath and then mentally counted to ten before answering Princess Neena. She might have a great many gifts, but tact wasn't among them.

  «My lady princess, you acted wisely according to what you knew. I am indeed from a land and people more distant than you could hope to know of. But I am a prince in my own right among my own people, traveling to prove myself and learn of other lands. I would not have betrayed you to Lord Desgo.»

  «How so?» said Neena. «Are you familiar with the ways of those of Trawn? Do you know how hard it is to buy their favor?»

  «No, I had never heard of Trawn before I came to Gleor.» He was tempted to add that he'd never heard of Draad either. «There are such people in my homeland, however. I know perfectly well how hard it is to buy their favor, and how seldom they keep faith even when you have sold yourself to them.

  «Besides, I will not sell myself to such vile people as those of Trawn even if they are willing to buy. As a prince I have some notions of honor, and as a man I have some notions of decency. I ask you to accept that.»

  Neena laughed, this time softly. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and the edge was gone from it.

  «Warrior-Prince-what is your name?»

  «Blade.»

  «Prince Blade. I accept what you've told me. You seem the sort of man of whom I can believe this. Also, I am grateful for your opening this tunnel for us. I doubt if I would have been strong enough to get through the grating. Now we have a place where we can sit and talk to each other. We will not have to be silent and look dumb or dismal to fool whoever watches from above.»

  It was Blade's turn to laugh. «You see things very clearly, princess. Unfortunately, I hoped for more from this tunnel than it can give us.»

  He told her briefly of what he'd found down there in the darkness. Neena looked sober, then frowned.

  «You say there is no way to find out how wide that gap may be?»

  «None that I can think of,» replied Blade. «I know the gap is deep enough so that anyone who falls into it will be smashed to pieces. But the width-«He shrugged.

  «Well, if the thing was not wide enough to make a barrier for prisoners, they would doubtless have sealed off the tunnel entirely. Then we would be even worse off than we are.»

  «Perhaps,» said Blade. «But I still wonder why they didn't block all access, even to the gap. It is certainly a way to a quick death, and I imagine many prisoners must be looking for such a death.»

  «Those of Trawn do not find it easy to understand how the minds of other people may work,» explained Neena. «They do not see their own people trying to flee from cruelty-or at least not very often. They do not expect to see other people do the same.»

  «Not very wise, are they?» said Blade drily.

  «Perhaps it is a lack of wisdom, perhaps it is their curse from the gods.»

  «Curse?»

  «Or so our Kaireens-the Learned Ones-say. They say the gods have cursed those of Trawn with a poison in the earth under their feet. It is a poison that rises from the earth into the water they drink and the flesh and fruit they eat.»

  «They look healthy enough,» said Blade.

  «Oh, it is not a poison that twists their limbs or blinds their eyes. It poisons their very souls so that they love cruelty and pain. They cannot understand any people who do not love these evils.»

  Blade nodded, mentally translating Neena's description into more scientific language. It sounded like soil chemicals or parasites that either infected the whole population or caused enough genetic damage to produce hereditary mental disorders in the whole population.

  But if this element was in the soil or water-

  «How long does it take for the poison to work?» said Blade.

  Neena shrugged. «No one seems to know. The people of Trawn have been like this since we in Draad have known of their existence. You fear we may be poisoned if we stay long here?»

  «Yes.»

  «So do I. But I think we shall not be here long-at least not alive. You agree?»

  Blade nodded.

  «Good. Then we have little to fear from the poison, unless it works very swiftly indeed. Of course, if you do start asking the guards for a whip to flog me, I will know that it is working in you. Otherwise I shall not lose any sleep over it.»

  They both laughed, and Neena began to try combing out her long dark hair with her fingers. She grimaced as she worked through the mass of snags, knots, and tangles that her hair had become.

  Blade watched her as she worked, noting her sure movements, the play of expression on her pixieish face, the graceful lift of her breasts. She had both wits and wit, and she had lost neither in being captured. She would be as good an ally as he could expect, and far better than he'd dared hope for.

  Blade and Neena settled down to manage as comfortably as they could hope to under the circumstances. Food and water were lowered from the doorway in buckets twice a day. There was enough food to satisfy half a dozen people, and enough water to allow for some washing. Blade left most of the washing water for Neena, since a daily scrub seemed to improve her spirits.

  The food was not exactly gourmet cooking. It consisted largely of heavily spiced stews of root vegetables, with large chunks of salted meat or fish thrown in about every third meal. It made Blade thirstier than ever, but also filled him comfortably. He was sure that on this diet he could keep up his strength as long as necessary.

  «That's probably the idea,» was Neena's comment. «You must be kept strong to make a prime slave. Even if they do torture you to death in the end, you will last longer and make a better show if you are strong.» There was no need to say why their captors were keeping her strong. At least once a day the guards reminded them that King Furzun liked his women strong enough to put up a fight when he took them.

  No one seemed concerned about the captives' escaping, or paid any attention to what Blade had done with the grating. Still, they took as few chances as possible. They spent only a few minutes each
day in the tunnel. Each time they passed through the grating, Blade pulled the loose bars roughly back into place and held them there with globs of mud. In the dim light, the grating looked almost intact.

  They never left the grating and tunnel unwatched, though. Somehow they had to find out just exactly how wide that mysterious gap might be. Blade would cheerfully have promised anything to anybody in return for fifteen minutes in the tunnel with a good torch.

  As Blade expected, Neena found the waiting hard. From his own years as an agent he was used to waiting, like a cat in front of the hole of a very lazy mouse. Neena, on the other hand, was a royal lady, proud and impatient as a thoroughbred race horse. Several times a day she would spring up and stride around and around the prison like a caged tiger, until sheer exhaustion brought her to a stop.

  Blade himself soon began to wonder how much longer they would have to wait. From the number of meals served, they'd already been here over a week. Lord Desgo seemed to have forgotten their existence, and as for King Furzun, it seemed that he had never even heard of them.

  Chapter 8

  «Blade, Blade-wake up»

  Neena's voice cut into Blade's sleep. He struggled awake, rolled over, and sat up.

  «What-?» he grunted, as he drove the fog of sleep out of his mind. Neena only pointed at the grating and the tunnel beyond it. Suddenly Blade was not only awake but alert, and he saw what Neena meant.

  Far down inside the tunnel was a flickering orange glow. Wherever it was and whatever it was, it was bright enough so that the bars of the grating threw shadows on the floor of the prison chamber. That glow must be illuminating the entire inside of the tunnel. Blade got down on hands and knees, and scrambled quickly and quietly toward the grating.

  A few quick jerks, and the way was open. Blade crawled through, Neena following him. In the tunnel they rose to a crouch and headed downward as fast as they could. The orange glow grew stronger as they moved.

  They came to the gap. The glow showed it clearly, and the tunnel beyond. The actual source of the light lay well beyond the gap, about where Blade had seen gray daylight trickling through. Now an enormous fire was burning above, flooding the tunnel with its glow. Blade could hear the distant roar and crackle of the flames and feel puffs and waves of warm air on his skin.

  Blade turned his attention to the gap that yawned at his feet, and plunged away into the depths. The blackness in the shaft below swallowed even the fire's glow after a few yards.

  The width, on the other hand-Blade looked, and cursed. The far side of the gap was just under twenty-five feet away.

  Damn, damn, damn-damn ten times over! A yard less, and Blade would have gladly attempted the leap. The earth on both edges was firm, and there was plenty of room overhead.

  As it was, the gap was just a little too wide for him to have more than a slim chance of making it safely. A chance much too slim to be worth risking, when the price of failure was a three-hundred foot plunge to certain death in the musty darkness far below.

  As he'd suspected, the tunnel wasn't going to be a very good escape route. As a hiding place for moments of privacy, it was fine. As a route to a quick and merciful death it was even better. But for the moment Blade's mind was more on escaping. He suspected Neena's was the same.

  He noticed that she was staring out across the gap, apparently measuring it with her eyes. Then she turned to him.

  «Blade. Can you leap that?»

  Blade slowly shook his head. «Not with much hope of landing safely.»

  She nodded. «Neither could I. But if you-well, threw me just as I leaped-«Again she measured the distance with her eyes. «I am light, and you look very strong. I think it could be done.»

  Blade frowned. «But then?»

  «If we had a rope and a stake, I could push the stake into the dirt and tie the rope to it. Then I could throw the other end of the rope back to you, and you could swing across and climb out on the other side.»

  That seemed perfectly logical and sensible to Blade. Except-

  «One of the bars from the grating will do for the stake. As for the rope-«She smiled and shook her head. «There I admit we have a problem.» She pulled out a few strands of her dark hair and looked at them, then dropped them into the shaft and watched them as they floated down out of sight. «No, that will not do. Not even if I made myself as bald as a koba nut could I make a proper rope of my hair.»

  There was undoubtedly plenty of stout rope in Trawn. But all of it was outside their prison chamber. Damn again!

  Neena looked at Blade, saw the sober expression on his bearded face, and misunderstood what was on his mind. «Blade-do not think that I would ask you to help me escape if there was no way out for you. I am of the royal house of Draad, and unlike those of Trawn we have some knowledge of honor. We shall escape together, you and I, or not escape at all.» She rose on tiptoe and kissed him on the mouth. It was a long, lingering, warm kiss, that promised an even warmer passion at another time and place. Blade put his arms around the princess and they stood there, locked together, for some time.

  As they crawled back up the tunnel, Blade was certain that Neena had made a promise she would keep. Still, if only one of them could have a chance to escape, he would make sure that it was she. King Furzun and Lord Desgo and all the stolofs in Trawn put together could do nothing worse to him than kill him. They could do a good deal more to Neena. She deserved every chance to escape that luck or skill could manage.

  Unfortunately, it didn't seem that there would be very many of those chances for either of them.

  Another week went by. Blade began to wonder if Lord Desgo had thought up a new form of torture-leaving them alone until they either got ulcers from worrying about what might happen; or died of boredom because nothing did.

  Neena laughed at the idea. «Things will happen, sooner or later. King Furzun is a mighty eater and drinker. He can eat and drink in a single day much more than even his body will hold. Then he must lie in bed for a week or more, bathed each day in perfume, drinking nothing but water, and taking not even one woman. Doubtless we came to Trawnom-Driba just after Furzun took to his bed. So nothing will be done about us until Furzun has seen us, and he will not see us until he is on his feet again.»

  The next morning breakfast was delivered at the usual time, in the usual buckets, and consisting of the usual stew. But five of the guards in blue leather stood behind the two slaves who lowered the buckets. All the guards' leather gleamed with fresh wax, and the metal of their helmets and swords was freshly burnished.

  Blade jerked a thumb at the guards. «All prettied up for a visit by somebody important, it seems. King Furzun?» Neena's mouth was full of stew, but she nodded.

  They had just finished breakfast, when a terrific uproar of very badly blown trumpets sounded outside. Each of the trumpeters seemed to be playing in a different key. Several of them ran out of breath halfway through the fanfare. It was a dreadful noise. Neena winced and clapped her hands over her ears.

  Eventually the uproar died away in a last pathetic Hurry of gasps and feeble tootings. A bellowing voice roared out, «Furzun the Third, Supreme. Warlord of All Trawn, Master of the Forests, Terror of Gleor-«The bombastic list of titles went on for quite a while. The herald's voice was no more musical than the trumpets, and it sounded as if he had a bad cold in addition.

  In time, the herald ran out of titles for King Furzun or out of breath. Then the guards drew aside to the right and the left. Lord Desgo appeared in the doorway, and beside him one of the ugliest men Blade had ever seen.

  King Furzun must have weighed close to four hundred pounds, most of it fat. He was nearly six feet tall-also six feet wide and six feet thick. He wore a dark yellow robe trimmed with brown fur and large enough to make a good-sized tent. The robe showed several patches and at least a dozen different kinds of food and wine stains. Furzun's long gray hair was stiff with grease and stood straight up. His long gray beard was even stiffer, and stood straight out from his chin like the bo
wsprit of a sailing ship. A sickeningly sweet odor of perfume rose from him in waves almost strong enough to beat down the smells of the prison chamber.

  Beside him a naked slave girl knelt on the floor. She carried a basket in her mouth, like a dog carrying a bone. Occasionally Furzun would reach down into the basket, pick up a sweetmeat, and pop it into his froglike mouth.

  Lord Desgo bowed to the king and pointed at Neena.

  «Behold, Your Majesty. I spoke the truth when I said I had made Neena of Draad prisoner and gift to you. Indeed it is she who stands before us.»

  Furzun's eyes shifted in their deep pouches of fat and focused on Neena. «It is indeed Neena of Draad, and I spoke ill when I said you lied.» Furzun's voice was the only normal, healthy thing about him. It was a plain, unaffected baritone, with a slight wheeziness about it.

  «How came you to take her?» Furzun went on. «She is much given to hunting. This we know. But King Embor has his wits about him, and keeps a strong guard around her.»

  «It was not about her when we met,» said Desgo. «Only her woman Kubona, whom I gave to my warriors for their pleasure.» Blade saw Neena's mouth tighten into a hard line at that grim memory. «The man was a stranger to her, though he did fight for her. Yet he was no problem, for my stolof and I found it easy to overcome him.»

  «That part of your tale is most probably a lie,» said Furzun. «He does not look like a man who would be easy for you to beat, with or without a stolof. However, we do have him a prisoner, and doubtless some use may be found for him. As for Neena, she was a fool to wander in the Forests of Gleor without a guard stronger than men's desires for her.» Neena glared at the word «fool,» and Blade laid a hand gently on her shoulder to calm her.

  «Indeed, Your Majesty, she was a fool.» Another glare from Neena. «Now she shall pay a woman's price for being foolish. She has been kept as she came to us, that you might treat her as one would write upon fresh-cleaned parchment. She has not even received any training. Furzun nodded and pulled at the flesh of his jowls as he looked at Neena. Blade saw that she was beginning to breathe heavily in growing rage under Furzun's stare. Again he laid a hand on her shoulder. This time she twisted sharply, throwing his hand off.