But though Lann had used a spear to break the cell door loose, he hadn't thought to bring it along in case he needed a lever again. His enemy Procron hadn't put a man's brain into an ape's body… but it did appear that he had put part of a man's brain into an ape.
The grating rang like anvils falling together. Hedia thought the spear must have snapped, but the orichalc shaft had held. The sound was the thick steel bolt breaking.
Hedia thought the obvious way to proceed was for Lann to use the lever to break the remaining bolt on that side. Instead he dropped the spear, gripped the edge of the grate with both hands, and set his feet on the wall.
The grating was taller than the cell, giving the ape-man more leverage on the upper bolt than he'd had on the door hinge. It flexed upward only a few inches when the bolt sheared with another ringing crash.
Water trapped behind the debris at the bottom of the screen gushed through. Grunting in thunderous triumph, Lann walked backward along the wall, dragging the grate with him.
At last he dropped to all fours in the water, snorting like a winded horse. He had bent back the grating so that it left a broad passage, but the ape-man was blocking it.
Hedia smiled wryly. She didn't intend to go on without him, even if she had been able to get by.
Lann rose to his usual crouch, glanced at Hedia, and shambled past the grating. She fished out the spear again and followed. His strength was incredible, but even so his exertions must have taken a toll; he seemed logy, though- She was thinking of him as human. An ape couldn't be expected to be sprightly in human terms.
They sloshed from the inlet into a sea which got deeper very quickly. Lann hooted in concern and pulled Hedia with him to the muddy bank.
The water shone in moonlight. In the far distance she could see the opposite shore, not as a place but as a boundary to the shimmering smoothness. Occasional streaks indicated that things were swimming close to the surface, and the water slapped once.
They continued along the edge of the water. Behind them Poseidonis rose as a series of glittering angles beyond a band of jungle. Hedia didn't see guards, and she doubted whether human eyes could have sorted the escapees from flotsam and animals even if someone were watching.
Lann stopped. They had reached a mass of lily pads ten feet and more in diameter with upturned rims. They covered a portion of the sea and pressed onto the shore.
The ape-man walked cautiously onto the nearest, then crossed it to the next. The pad wobbled and deformed, but it supported his weight. Thick veins stiffened the leaves the way a wicker framework did the skin boats which Hedia had seen Gauls using in the lagoons at the mouth of the Po River.
She followed, puzzled but willing to assume that Lann knew what he was doing. The pads were so buoyant that she was sure-almost sure-that she and the ape-man could stand on the same one without overburdening it, but she chose not to test her belief. The mass of vegetation reached some distance out into the sea, but it would be at least a half mile from the edge to the opposite shore.
After crossing at least a dozen of the great leaves, the ape-man stopped on the last row of pads. He gripped the rim of an adjacent pad and manhandled it part-way onto the one he squatted on, then folded it over with a struggle.
The undersides of the veins were covered with finger-length spines. They weren't thorns, apparently, because they bent without drawing blood when Lann pressed against them, but Hedia shivered when she saw them. They brought home the alien nature of this place as nothing else had done.
A stem as thick as a man's leg connected the pad to roots in the floor of the sea. Lann began chewing on it about six feet below the pad.
Hedia didn't understand for a moment what was happening. Then she drew the dagger and called, "Lann? Can't you use this?"
The ape-man turned and blinked; then he went back to chewing on the stem. Hedia grimaced and got onto the same pad as the ape-man. Even with their combined weight and that of the pad Lann was working on, the edge didn't quite go under water.
Lann looked at her again and hooted in confusion. Hedia stabbed into the middle of the stem where he gnawing, then shoved the blade downward. It sliced through the tough fibers as easily as a cook would joint a chicken. She had seen how strong orichalc was; now she learned that it held a razor edge as well.
She severed the remainder of the stem with an upward stroke, then stepped back feeling pleased. She wanted to wipe the blade, but she hadn't brought the garment from her cell.
Still, she had the bandolier. She lifted it away from her body to use it for a rag. Lann had been chirping with delight. Now he caught her wrist and pointed with his free hand to the stem close to the pad itself.
"You want me to cut it there?" Hedia said in puzzlement-knowing as she spoke that she might as well whistle as speak for her chances of being understood.
But Lann did understand. At any rate he bit into the stem where he had pointed, then leaned back and gave her a broad, bestial grin. Hedia braced her left hand on his shoulder and cut the stem again, this time with a single stroke.
She grinned. She was used to not understanding what a man was doing but going along with it anyway. Not infrequently it turned out to be a pleasant experience.
Gurgling in delight, Lann unfolded the severed leaf and shoved it into the sea again. Holding it with one hand, he tossed the length of stem into it with his free hand, then motioned Hedia imperiously to get in also. When she delayed a moment to sheathe the dagger, the ape-man caught her by the thigh and tugged.
Her eyes narrowed though she said nothing. The ten-inch blade might not cut bone, but it was certainly sharp enough to slice even Lann's massive throat to the spine. He really needs to learn some courtesy when dealing with a lady of Carce…
Hedia walked carefully to the middle of the leaf. The surface was resilient but not really disquieting; it reminded her of walking up a ship's gangplank.
The ape-man got on behind her, making the pad sway dangerously. Hedia moved to the far edge. That helped slightly with the balance, and the veins proved to be strong enough to keep the leaf from folding downward and dropping them both into the water.
Lann pushed off from the remaining vegetation and began lashing the water with the length of stem. It made an extremely clumsy paddle, but Hedia didn't have a better idea.
Wobbling, dipping, and rotating enough that occasionally the ape-man reversed his stroke to counteract it, the makeshift boat started across the sea. If things were ideal, I'd be sharing a dinner couch with a very stalwart young man, and we would be considering how to proceed after dessert, Hedia thought. But considering the alternatives, the present situation was just fine.
She leaned over the rim and looked down. All she could see was her own reflection, distorted by ripples from the pad's motion. Absently she trailed her fingertips in the water. It was cool if not cold, unlike the warmth of the Bay of Puteoli. She thought of the relaxing days she had spent in villas at Baiae, wondering if she would ever- "Waugh!" Lann shouted. The leaf bucked as he flopped across it and caught Hedia's leg.
He jerked her away from edge with the kind of violence he had displayed toward the Servitors. She let out a startled yelp, then broke into tears: a defensive reflex honed by the number of times powerful men had attacked her.
The pad lurched again. Hedia twisted around just as jaws clopped shut like the stroke of a battering ram. She didn't know what the creature was-fish or snake or something still worse-but it could have bitten Lann in half, let alone her.
It sank back and swirled off, brushing the pad with its tail. Hedia stopped crying. Now her fright was completely real.