I might be able to slip through, Hedia thought; though she knew that slim as she was, she wasn't really that slim. But if Lann would break the upper hinge also- The ape-man dropped the spear and gripped the corner of the door. With his feet braced on the crystal jamb, he used the bars' own length to lever them outward.
"There, I can squeeze through!" Hedia said. She got down on her hands and knees.
Lann continued to pull. Can he understand Greek?
The corner of the door squealed as it bent upward like a scrap of cloth caught in a breeze. The ape-man dropped to the floor again. He was breathing hard and the fur of his chest and shoulders was soaked with sweat.
Hedia started to crawl out. Lann pushed her back with the brusque gentleness a nurse uses toward an infant who insists on going somewhere she shouldn't. To Hedia's surprise, he crouched and squirmed into the cell, twisting part-way through so that his massive shoulders would clear. She hadn't thought he would fit, but the ape-man had a better eye for the problem.
Although that didn't explain why he apparently wanted to imprison himself. Hedia could think of one possible reason, but she supposed she should discount that because her mind always tended to run in that direction. So, however, did the minds of many men who came in contact with her.
The ape-man ignored her and shuffled splay-legged to the drain. He thrust his right hand into it and planted his left hand flat on the floor. The muscles of his shoulders bunched again.
Hedia thought for a moment that Lann's hand was trapped; then she realized that the tile was lifting. The ape-man straightened till his long left arm was straight; the tile wasn't completely out of the hole in which it had nested, but she could see the underside shimmering close to the level of the floor.
Lann leaned backward, using the weight of his body to balance that of the massive tile: it was square, three feet on a side and eight inches thick. He gripped the upper edge with his left hand and tilted it further upward; his right hand was clenched into a fist, creating a lump too big to slip back through the drain hole.
He rotated the tile in the opening, then gave it a slight shove sideways and unclenched his fist. The tile, aligned with the diagonal, dropped through the square hole and smashed into the sewer beneath.
Lann turned, grinning, to Hedia. His right wrist was ringed with blood. He pointed down into the opening, grunted, and then climbed through. He held the rim for a moment, then dropped.
Hedia looked into the hole. She couldn't see the bottom, but she caught the motion of the ape-man waving. He grunted again, louder and this time imperiously. The sound echoed like a lion's cough.
Hedia darted to the front of her cell and stretched through the bars for the spear Lann had used for a lever. She pulled it in with her, then managed to reach the belt from which the second guard's dagger hung. The previous wearer was now a pile of sharp gravel which spilled away when she tugged the scabbard. She hung the belt over her shoulder like a bandolier instead of bothering with the complex buckle.
Lann called a third time, obviously angry. She doubted he could climb up again to fetch her, but she had learned not to discount the ape-man's strength and resourcefulness.
Hedia thrust the spear through the opening butt-first and waggled it until she felt a powerful hand snatch it away from her. She slid into the opening, bracing her arms on the sides as Lann had done. Relaxing them, she dropped.
She hoped Lann would catch her instead of letting her fall onto the edges of the drain tile. Even if that had happened it would be better than being dangled as bait for a monster.
Besides, trusting Lann had proved to be a good idea this far.
David Drake
Out of the Waters-ARC
CHAPTER 14
Lann caught Hedia not only easily but gently; his hands were like a pair of leather pillows shaped perfectly to the contours of her body. He lowered her till her feet touched water. She twitched back for an instant, but the ape-man was standing so she straightened her legs.
The bottom of the channel was no more than six inches below the surface. The trickle down the wall of Hedia's cell had been fresh, but this was salt enough to sting her many cuts and scratches. The Minoi must use a constant flow of sea water to flush the sewer.
The current was noticeable but not hazardous. Lann set off against it, hunching as before. He looked as though he were fighting a fierce wind.
Hedia fished up the spear-Lann had dropped it-and followed. She wished that the ape-man could talk, though his strength was certainly more valuable an asset than speech would have been.
She visualized a frail, scholarly monkey declaiming to the crowd in the forum in a toga. The thought made her giggle and feel better.
As her eyes adapted, she could see that the walls of the sewer glowed faintly blue up to within a foot or two of the high ceiling. She scraped the spear butt along it, finding crystal beneath. She left a mark on the surface and lifted a blob of bluish slime which she flicked off.
Algae, she supposed, or perhaps moss like the sheets that grew on the ancient well in Saxa's back garden. About all the light showed her was Lann, sloshing on ahead, but he was a comforting sight.
Hedia couldn't see into the water, and there was no walkway to the side of the channel. She decided not to worry about what she couldn't change. Occasionally her foot squished instead of splashing, but that could happen in the streets of Carce. If she had been squeamish, she would have missed out on quite a lot of what life had to offer.
It was growing brighter. There was something ahead, a cross-hatched pattern glimpsed past the ape-man's bulk.
It was a grating across the sewer. Vegetation so dead and dry that Hedia couldn't tell what it had been originally clung to the bars. It was a solid curtain at the bottom, and stray wisps remaining almost to the top from when the channel had been flooded. Through gaps Hedia could see the end of the tunnel; open water gleamed in the moonlight.
Lann reached out with both hands and shook the grate. It was fixed so firmly to the crystal that Hedia couldn't hear the metal ring-though she told herself that she did.
The ape-man cried out in echoing rage. He took the bars in his outstretched feet and hands, trying to bend them toward the middle. He shrieked like a bull being gelded.
"Lann?" Hedia said. He ignored her.
She shouted, "Lann!" at the top of her lungs. He continued to shake the bars vainly.
Hedia knew better than to touch him. She had been around a number of very angry men, and had learned how bad an idea startling one could be. She had never known anyone as strong as Lann, however.
Hedia stepped to the wall and rattled the orichalc spear-butt across the grating, making a musical clamor that cut through even the ape-man's bellows. Her hands tingled on the verge of numbness from the vibration.
To Lann, the grate must have felt like the breath of nearby lightning. He shouted, "Waugh!" and leaped backward.
Hedia offered the spear to him. He stared at it for a moment in confusion; then his expression brightened into a smile that displayed fangs which could have cracked the joint of an ox.
Two bolts on either side locked the grate to the crystal wall. Lann thrust the spear between the grate and the left-hand wall.
Hedia stepped away as the ape-man worked. He knew his own strength, but she had the impression that he didn't fully appreciate the weakness of those around him.
The ape-man was clearly more than just a beast. He had entered her prison by coming down the air shaft, but even he hadn't tried to climb back that way while carrying Hedia. He had known the way the sewer was constructed-he had been one of the rulers, after all-and he had intelligently exploited that design to escape with her.