His hands were tied, the course of his life dictated by circumstances, and it was no good wishing otherwise. Even so, the thought of working with the Myghtern—with someone he for once admired—was a pleasant one.
Beside him, Deng Liang leaned forward, frowning. "What's that?"
They listened. Somewhere outside, in the Myghtern's town, sirens were blaring. It ws a strange, unexpected sound. Hastings stood, looking to Tynan, but Tynan shrugged.
At the far end of the room the inner door of the air lock hissed open. Tak stepped inside.
"What's happening?" Tynan asked.
"It's nothing, gentlemen," the small man said reassuringly. "A prisoner's escaped, that's all. We'll soon have him locked up again. But until we do, the Myghtern has requested that you stay here. There's a guard on the outer door, so you're perfectly safe."
Hastings, who had come across, met Tynan's eyes, a query in his own as to whether this might not be some kind of ploy on the Myghtern's part, but again Tynan made a shrugging gesture.
"And if you don't find him?" Nolen asked, coming up behind them.
"Oh, we'll get him," Tak said, smiling tightly. "Why, he'd need to be some kind of sorcerer to get out of the Myghtern's city right now."
it's NO GOOD, Ben thought, setting Scaf down, I have to rest. At his own estimate he had walked almost four miles, yet for all his attempts to keep some kind of track on where he was, he had to admit that he was lost.
He leaned over Scaf, listening for a breath, then, when he could hear nothing, put his fingers to Scaf s neck, feeling for a pulse. It was there, but faint. Far fainter than it had been. If he did not get help soon, Scaf would die. But where would one find help, here in this endless darkness? His only hope was to get to the seal. To somehow find a way back to the Domain.
Ben crouched, looking about him. His eyes had slowly become accustomed to the darkness. Even so, it was hard to discern between shadow and substance. So often his eyes had tricked him, making him think something—someone?—was there, when there was nothing. He had been right to think of this place as a giant "shell," for his brain, denied its usual visual stimulus, had begun to create its own pictures—
painting illusions on the blackness. In that regard the Clay was a giant desert, filled with its own mirages.
Down here, he realized, one came to trust other senses than sight— one's sense of hearing, particularly.
There was a sharp click!—the sound a stone makes when it falls against a hard surface. He waited, tensed, listening, then turned back and lifted Scaf onto his shoulder once again. As he did, the dayman stirred and murmured something.
"What?" Ben asked as quietly as he could, placing his cheek against Scaf s face.
"Leave me," Scaf said, quietly yet distinctly. "Alone you'll make it.
With me—"
"No," Ben whispered, and began to move again, picking his way blindly, his feet finding their way slowly, deliberately, across the uneven surface. He felt Scaf shiver, the movement rippling through his body like the wind through a rag, and felt his determination harden. They would get out. They would.
"I'm no good anymore," Scaf said after a moment. "I'm blind, and my legs—"
"That doesn't matter," Ben whispered. "We can replace all kinds of things these days. Eyes, legs. I'll make you as good as new."
"And the memories?"
Ben's legs moved slowly through the dark, separate, it seemed, from this thinking self. For a moment he conceived himself as some kind of piston-driven machine, filled with fuel, pumping its way slowly, inexorably through an eternity of darkness.
"That's for you to choose," Ben said finally. "Whether you want to keep them or not."
But Scaf was sleeping again.
Ben walked on, his legs pumping wearily through the endless dark.
THE FOUR OATEMEN knelt before Tak, their heads lowered abjectly. They had failed in their duty and now they must pay the price. Tak's men formed a great circle about them in the High Cross, the cathedral towering over the scene. Tak waited angrily, gun in hand.
"Mes y gwyryon!" one of the guards insisted, his eyes pleading with Tak. But it's true! "An jevan tewlel hus ha y luf nyja y-ban ha dyswul an hespow . . . crakkya a'n gwelen!" The demon cast a spell and his hand floated up and undid the great locks . . . snapped them like twigs!
Tak's anger boiled over.
The gunshot sent a ripple of fear through all those watching. The three kneeling men hunched into themselves, whimpering.
Tak walked down the line. "Liars!" he screamed, firing point-blank at the second man. "Fools!" Again a shot rang out. "Incompetents!"
The gun clicked, empty. Tak glared at the man, then, throwing the gun away, drew his dagger and, grabbing him by the hair, slit his throat.
He stepped back, looking about him. There would be no more talk of demons and spells. Above technology, that was all this was. Yet he knew his men were scared. He had seen what had happened to the jailer, Ponow, and knew that dozens of his men had seen it too. Whoever—whatever?—did that had superhuman strength. And the great locks on the gate . . . there was no doubting that they had been snapped. But that was not the point. He could not let the rumors get out of hand, nor his men succumb to fear. He must control them, and the only way to do that was to make them more afraid of him than of this "sorcerer" Shepherd.
He turned. A messenger had come.
"Pandra vyth gwres?" What now?
The messenger's gap-toothed mouth opened in a wide smile. "Ny trovya pystryor!" We find wizard!
"Prysner," he corrected him, then, "Py plas?" Where?
"Holya!" the messenger answered, turning away. Come! "Ny settya an jevan!" We've surrounded the demon!
TAK LOOKED THROUGH the heat-sensitive glasses and smiled. Shepherd was at the bottom of the valley, trudging along the bed of a dried-up stream, the wounded servant on his shoulder.
How strange that he should do that, thought Tak. From what he'd heard life was cheap in the Above; almost as cheap—so Tynan said— as here. Such a man as Shepherd could buy a hundred men, surely? Unless he, Tak, had overlooked something.
They had got nothing torturing the men: nothing, that was, about why Shepherd was here, in the Clay. It seemed he had not confided in his men. Yet he must have wanted something, or why take the risk?
Tak frowned, then put the glasses down. Turning, he signaled along the line of men. It was time to take their captive back.
BEN STOPPED AND TURNED , astonished. High above him and to either side, where there had been nothing only a moment before, were now two straggling lines of lights. Slowly, even as he watched, they approached, spreading out to encircle him.
Lamps, he realized, noting the ghostly presence of men behind the lights. They're carrying lamps.
He sank to his knees, resting Scaf on the ground beside him, then looked up again.
So this is it.
After what he'd done to the jailer he didn't expect any mercy from them. The best he might hope for was a quick death; the worst—well, Scaf could tell him what the worst was.
He watched, observant to the last, a camera eye, seeing the swaying lamps come on toward him. Two flashes from a laser and even that would be denied me, he thought, knowing how easily a good marksman could burn away his cornea. It would take but an instant.