by Джеффри Лорд
Galligantus had been watching his reaction, a cunning smile on his mean features. But he was astute.
«I see greed,» he said, «and I do not understand. How do you gain of it, of this stone? But to make an image and persuade Loth that you can work magic with it? Which mayhap you can. I do not deny it-yet, though I have my own thoughts as to it. But you gaze on this useless stone as a man might on a woman or a fine weapon.»
«The images,» said Blade. «I must see them.»
Galligantus drew his sword. He had a brief whispered talk with his men and then gestured to Blade. «Walk ahead of me. We will go to the place of Kings and Queens alone. These commoners are not permitted to see.»
There was a narrow opening to one side of the diamond face. Galligantus prodded Blade through it with his point. «Walk well ahead but not too far. Do not tempt me, Prince Blade. I would as lief kill you and take my chances with Loth. I admit it. But I will not unless you force me.»
Blade carried a torch. The passage was short and ended on a wide ledge. There was a chasm, wide and deep and black, and across the chasm was another ledge, smaller, narrower, a gallery of glinting figures.
Blade advanced to the brink of the chasm and raised his torch to see better. It guttered and smoked, and the yellow flame wavered in a fetid draft from the pit, but he saw well enough. He stood dumfounded, locked in awe and near disbelief, for here some artisan had wrought close to the quick of life.
There were dozens of them close-packed along the gallery. Men in armor and women in robes or breeches or kilts. All were life-size and all appeared to move and breathe in the uncertain light. Blade moved along the ledge on his side of the chasm, peering, trying to catch his breath.
«Mind you the edge.,» said Galligantus behind him. «If I am not to have the pleasure of killing you I would not have the pit take you.»
He picked up a chip of diamond and flung it into the chasm. «Listen, and tell me what you hear.»
Blade heard nothing. He gazed into the chasm and over it. At the narrow point he reckoned it to be fifteen feet across. He drew back a little and wandered farther down the ledge. And saw her.
She stood a little alone, on a natural plinth that jutted out over the chasm. She was naked and her arms were outstretched in welcome. Her glittering diamond smile seemed to welcome the torch, the light brought into the pit, and as Blade gaped she appeared to move. Warmth glowed in that perfect body. She spoke to Blade across the chasm and the years and he knew he must have her. From that moment on he reckoned himself a little mad and must live with it. But only half of him was mad.
Galligantus was close behind him now. Blade felt the swordpoint against his flesh. When the man spoke, Blade knew that he too felt the spell of this diamond goddess.
«That is Janina,» he said softly. «First Queen of the Hitts a thousand years ago. What a woman she was.»
«And is still,» Blade breathed. «And is yet. She is not dead. She lives far more than you or me, Galligantus.»
After a brief silence the Hitt said, «I see your reasoning, Prince Blade, and do not dispute it. But we cannot linger here all night. You have seen the images and can guess their measurement. What more do you want?»
A plan formed in Blade’s mind. It was his death if matters went wrong, but he meant to do it if he could. He must hold Galligantus in talk.
He pointed over the chasm. «I must have a closer view. I would have one of the images for study, to compare and to show the artisan who will work it. If I am to make an image of a warrior it must be exact, or the magic will not work.»
Galligantus began to laugh. «You ask too much. Even if it were possible, it could not be done-it is forbidden to touch the images once they have been placed on that ledge. In any case, we cannot come at them. Unless,» and his voice held mockery, «unless you would leap over and fetch it back.»
Blade gazed at the narrowest point. About fifteen feet. He might leap that far. But not now. He moved a little farther back from the edge.
«They were placed there,» he said. «And what is placed can be fetched back.»
Galligantus could not resist the temptation. «I will tell you how that goes,» he said. And prodded Blade in the buttocks with his sword.
«When a king or queen dies, an image is made. It is brought to this place. So are all the young and strong men, or women, who would be king or queen of the Hitts. They draw lots for it-to see who leaps the chasm first. Do you begin to understand?»
Blade moved along the ledge until he was at the narrowest point. Fifteen feet. It was a challenge to numb the brain, an incredible dare. Below him the black pit gaped. He remembered that he had never heard the diamond chip strike bottom.
«Do many fail?»
«Many, Prince Blade. They fall and that is an end to them.» Galligantus was closer now. Blade did not look at him. He held the torch away from his face. He did not want the man to see his eyes.
«Did Loth Bloodax come to the crown this way?»
«He did. He was the tenth to try. Loth made it and then lines were thrown and nets laid and the image lifted across. It was of his father. See yonder.» Galligantus pointed to a statue just across from them, bearded and glowering and bearing a marked resemblance to Bloodax.
Blade moved a little toward Galligantus. The Hitt did not notice.
«And then? How did he get back?»
Something happened to the Hitt’s voice. It grew surly, whiny, envenomed.
«He leaped back. It is required that a Hitt king make the leap twice.»
Blade made a closer inspection of the ledge over the way. It was so narrow! No running room, no place to maneuver. The gallery was barely five feet deep and packed with statues. He remembered the thick legs of Loth Bloodax. Fat now, but they had been all muscle when he leaped.
Blade saw the truth then and recognized it and spoke it, for it came readily to hand and fitted his plan. He instilled disdain and contempt into his voice.
«You and Bloodax are of an age,» he said. «Or nearly so. You were young then and no doubt the son of a leader. How was it that you did not leap, Galligantus?»
Blade heard a catch of breath behind him. The man was close. Blade waited for the swordstroke that did not come. He hurried on. He was into it now, the chance was there, and he must be careful not to be cut. There must be no wound or he would never live to tell his lie.
«I do not blame you,» Blade said with just the right amount of derision in his tone. «It is a fearful leap. I would not do it. But cowards live longer than brave men. Yet it must have galled you all these years-«
Galligantus made a strangled noise in his throat. He leaped and swung his sword.
«No man or god speaks so to me! I will-«
Blade ducked low and caught Galligantus between the ankles and knees. The sword whispered over him. Blade straightened and flung the Hitt over his shoulder and into the chasm.
Galligantus screamed once and there was no echo. Blade lingered, listening, but heard no sound.
He examined his body carefully in the light of the torch. He bore no wound other than the battle scratch, and that was near healed and accounted for. Lisma herself had bathed and anointed it. He began to make his way out of the place, then went back to gaze once more at the naked woman on her plinth.
Janina. What did a name matter? Or a thousand years. She was not dead. She lived. For Blade she lived, and he meant more than ever to have her. How he did not know, or when, but have her he must. She gazed back over the dark pit and held out her arms. It was then he saw her move and beckon. Her lips moved. The words came hauntingly sweet across the abyss. «Come to me.»
Blade raised the torch in salute. «In time, Janina. In time.»
Chapter 13
Blade told his lie, that Galligantus had slipped-mayhap a swoon or fit? — and fallen into the abyss. The junior officer did not believe it and Blade would have died then but for the order of Bloodax that he return safely. Galligantus had passed the order on and so his men dared not s
lay Blade now. They took him back, bound and with a halter about his neck, and he was once again imprisoned on the tower of rock. Lisma was forbidden to visit him.
But visit him she did, creeping in the dead of night after having bribed the guards. Blade did not ask how. She brought him a long dagger and minced no words as she handed it to him. She would not let him touch her.
«My father broods on this matter,» she told him. «It is not his way to act suddenly. He keeps apart, even from me, and when he comes to a decision it is never changed. In the end, Blade, I think he will find you guilty of killing Galligantus.»
«And what of you, Lisma? Do you think me guilty?»
She sat in the chair, tense, her hands nervous. «Yes. I think you slew Galligantus. Because of what he did to your friend Thane. I can understand that-any Hitt can. And to my thinking it is no great loss-his widow Sariah is not weeping overmuch. But that is not the point-Galligantus was a Hitt chief and a friend of my father. They were boys together. Galligantus was mean and envious, a man not much liked, but he was loyal. My father cannot let the matter pass as nothing, cannot ignore it, for there would be trouble with the tribes. He will punish you in-the end, Blade.»
Blade, seated on his cot, toyed with the dagger she had given him. It had a curved eight-inch blade and was razor sharp. The haft was of polished wood.
«What manner of punishment, Lisma?»
Her blue eyes were soft and moist. A sudden tear ran down her cheek. Yet buried somewhere in those eyes he detected a hardness, an unforgiving hatred, and found it also in her voice when she spoke.
«You will be taken to a mountain top and staked out for the vultures. It will be a slow death and a terrible one. We are quits, Blade, and I have been your fool. But I do not wish you such a death. That is why I gave you the dagger.»
He regarded the weapon with a half smile. «You think I should use it on myself?»
«If you have the courage. It will be better than the vultures.»
Blade nodded. «Yes. I agree to that.»
Lisma left the chair and came to within a foot of him. «I will go now, Blade, and will not come again. It may be that I will have your child. I hope not, for I will have to kill it, god or no.»
He was shocked and let it show. Of all things, he had not expected this. «Kill our child?»
Her blue eyes narrowed and her cold smile sent a chill up his back. He had near forgot that she was a Hitt-and a woman.
«When I sought to have your child without love between us-that was one thing. But then you spoke of love and I gave love and thought you did. You lied, Blade. You gave no love. You lied to me and made a fool of me, thus causing me to make a fool of my father. I want no child from that. Goodbye, Blade. Use the knife.»
She was gone. Blade sat in thought for some minutes before he used the knife. Not as she had suggested.
He found a long pole, taken from the cot frame, and bound the dagger to it with some of his rawhide. It made a crude spear.
He began to build up his fire. When it blazed well he covered it with green wood, for smoke, and went out on the plateau of stone. The wind was brisk, from the north as usual, and it lacked but an hour to sunset. He went to the rampart of boulders and gazed southward. A leatherman glided nearby and scrutinized him with hard eyes, then disappeared under the far rim.
Beyond those peaks lay the thalassic coast, the channel with its coves and inlets, and Blade knew he would find corpses there. And so armor and weapons. The Hitts did not bother to bury the common dead. Could he reach the coast, or even gain near to it, he had a chance. But he must go at once. Any moment now the brooding Loth Bloodax might cease brooding and come to action.
He would have to do it in the dark. He did not like the idea, even with a moon already visible in the east, but it must be done. He dared not wait for another dawn. He would have to take his chances. The balloon was going up-he smiled grimly at the Home-Dimension slang-and he with it, and he had no way of knowing how it would end. He glanced again at the peaks, flaming gold in the crepuscular light, and turned back to the hut. Looking would not solve anything. It was murderous terrain and he would need all his luck.
As the sun slid from view the trapdoor opened. Blade felt a tightness in his chest and held his breath. Were they coming for him now? He reached for the crude spear. If they came, he would fight it out here, for once bound and helpless he would be vulture bait.
A hand appeared and shoved a bowl of food and a can of water onto the roof, then disappeared. The trapdoor closed. Blade breathed again. He drank the water and wolfed down the food, not knowing when he would eat or drink again. The moon was gibbous, scratching its hump on a far peak, and he must go before it grew too light. He had never known the leathermen to fly at night, but did not preclude it.
He began to work. The balloon was complete, sewn as tightly as he could get it, and, though there would be leaks, he thought it would work. It had better. This pillar, this sandstone phallus on which he now stood, fell away sheer for five hundred feet. A long way to fall.
Thus far he had proceeded on theory, not daring to run a test. When it was full dark, but for the moon, he hauled his bag of skins out on the rock and spread it ready for inflating. He fitted a rawhide tube into the bottom opening and ran it to the hut chimney. Over the chimney top he fitted a leather apron and pushed the tube into a hole left for it. The smoke, thick and greasy, began to filter through the tube and into the balloon. There were many leaks and about this he could do nothing.
Blade had been short of rawhide and, not daring to ask for more lest he arouse suspicion, could not rig a full net over the balloon. He settled for straps tied into the skins near the fringe, knotting them together to give him a handhold. He had no way of making grommets, and if the straps pulled loose, or if the skins tore away. . he did not like to think of it.
By the time the moon was an hour high the balloon was swelling, a puffed and lopsided monstrosity that moved with the wind and tugged at its tethering strip of rawhide. Blade regarded it askance and for a moment even his stout heart quailed. Could this poor thing even get him off the stone tower? Would it not be better to wait, to take his chances and await a better time to escape?
He went into the hut and heaped more wood on the fire. He had come this far with the plan and he would finish with it. He took his homemade spear and went back to the balloon. It was in the air now, tugging ever more fiercely at its halter. Smoke leaped from a score of seams. Blade punched it with his big fist. Solid, crammed with hot air longing to rise. It would not be long now.
A leatherman came over. Blade cursed. He had guessed wrong. They did fly at night, and with the moon so bright they could not fail to see the balloon. See, yes, but would they understand?
The leatherman glided past with the usual hissing sound, not twenty feet above the balloon. For a moment Blade thought the Hitt was going to land on the tower, and he snatched at his spear and stood ready. The leatherman barely cleared the far precipice-they were skilled at that-and drifted down into the valley. How much had he seen or understood? Blade ran to the rampart and peered anxiously down.
Nothing yet. A few fires down there, a few moving torches. Blade ran to the trapdoor. It was light, of wood, and there was no way to secure it from above. He moved the trapdoor a few inches and flung himself on his belly, listening. Voices. Far below. Voices bellowing orders and a tramp of feet and clatter of arms. They were coming. The leathermen had wasted no time.
Torches began to flare in the mountains around him. From the nearest peak, higher than his tower, he saw four lights appear and move in signal. The alarm was out. Go, Blade!
He ran back to the balloon. It was straining at the rawhide leash. Blade disengaged the tube from the chimney and thrust an arm through his knotted holding straps. The spear was in his right hand. He reached and began to saw the restraining line apart just as the trapdoor was flung aside and armed men burst onto the pillar top with a vast hoarse shouting. The line snapped. The balloon leape
d upward with a jerk that nearly tore Blade’s arm from its socket. The wind caught it and sucked it away to the south. A flung spear missed Blade by a foot and an arrow hissed into the balloon and hung there.
Blade gained altitude fast, but not fast enough. As he was swept away to the south on a freshening wind, a jagged snow-capped peak loomed just ahead. He was below it. His left arm was cramped, painful, and as he was about to shift the spear and use his right arm for support, he saw the familiar silhouette of a leatherman leave the peak and come gliding straight at the balloon. Blade tensed, the spear still in his right hand and ready for thrusting.
The leatherman must have meant to fly into the grotesque smoke-leaking bag that hurtled toward him. He did not understand a balloon and he was afraid, but the torch signals had bid him to stop this thing. To fight it. He tried to obey.
He could not control his crude, bat-winged frame of wood. He missed the bag and flew into Blade. The shock nearly dislodged Blade, and for a moment his feet became entangled in the armature. The leatherman, his arms helplessly pinioned into the wingstraps, glared at him, then shrieked as Blade put the spear-dagger into his throat. Blade kicked free of the contraption and watched it fold and break and spiral down to crash.
He was past the last high peak now and the balloon was still rising. He traveled in the absolute silence that only a balloonist knows. He tucked the spear under his arm and hung on grimly. His arms were already weary, cramping, painful. It became very cold. He wore only his leather battle kilt and a crude woven shirt given him by Lisma. The pain in his hands and arms continued to grow, and for the first time the thought came that perhaps he did not have the strength to see it through. He flexed his fingers and changed grips constantly. If his hands went numb, if his great biceps cramped too badly. .
