Andas got back into the hidden pa.s.sage and snapped the panel shut behind him. He might have a very limited time to reach what he sought-so the sooner he was on his way, the better. So far he had come by a roundabout way. Now he must seize the chance on a pa.s.sage that led into the heart of the Towers-the private quarters of the Emperor. And there was no telling about the ways there-maybe the Emperor knew them.
He switched the lamp on low. If the Emperor was the android, then he must have been provided with Andas"s memories-which meant that he would know all about the exploration of these ways in the old days. So he would be prepared, once he had heard Abena"s story, to hunt Andas through the very pa.s.sages he had confidently trusted to hide him. He could even set up ambushes!
The only deterrent to the android against putting the guard in the pa.s.sages as hunting hounds would be that too many secrets would be so revealed. But what that might mean in the future had no bearing on the present. Andas had to find the Emperor"s chamber as soon as he could, and he only hoped that his memory was correct.
He began to count side pa.s.sages, three, four-it was the sixth one that he wanted. Yes, it was here, five almost wall to wall with six. That gave onto a flight of stairs where dampness oozed. And there was a dank smell of-what had Elys called it-evil! Yes, if evil had a smell of its own, this was where one could well find it. There had been death walking these narrow ways through the centuries before him.
Andas counted twenty steps, and then the pa.s.sage leveled off. But there were slime tracks on the walls here. They glistened in the lamplight. He never remembered seeing any of the things that left such traces, nor did he want to. But he dared now to turn the lamp up full strength to shine ahead.
The pavement under foot was crossed and recrossed by thicker trails of slime. He slowed his pace a little as his sandals slipped and slid. If he remembered rightly, this was the worst section of the way, for it ran under the moat pond that surrounded the Emperor"s pavilion.
Steps ahead, going up now. He turned the lamp back to low and climbed. It was like progressing out of the foul air of a swamp, for here the walls were drier, and now and then there was actually a whiff of incense or herbs wafting through the spy holes along this pa.s.sage. But Andas did not pause at any of those holes. Time was important, and what he sought was at the very end of this way.
-8-.
He must reach the bedroom of the Emperor, and if it were occupied- In his day (Andas found himself now separating past from present) there had always been guards in the outer chamber. But the Emperor was usually alone, even though on two sides of the pavilion wide vista windows opened on the Garden of Ankikas. And there were, according to custom also, small night lights made fast to the trees out there, illuminating moss and flowers. In addition, when the Emperor pleased, a transparent landscape could be thrown by concealed tri-dees on the walls, off-world scenes. Andas recalled more details as he sped along until at last he faced the wall where there was no spy hole but which should contain a small pattern of depressions.
Press-three together, then three more, then four. A band of light outlined a door panel. But opened no more than thumb"s width. He worked his fingers into that and exerted his strength against an ancient and apparently long-unused latch.
There was a sound, a dismal grating that froze him for an instant. But it heralded the giving way of the obstruction. The panel slid open, and he looked into the room. He more than half expected to front a blaster or else the ceremonial dagger worn by all of n.o.ble rank. There were too many times in the past when emperors had been trapped, even in their own quarters. He was a little surprised the panel opened at all. If this false Andas had his memories, he would have known about this entrance.
Luck favored him again. The room, under the soft radiance of lamps set on shoulder-high pedestals around the wall, was empty. Andas wasted no time in crossing to where there was on the wall a great mask, impressive in its solemn beauty. Three times life size, it was supposed to be the representation of Akmedu, the first emperor, he of the House of Burdo, who legend said was more than human, having great knowledge, daring even to go against the Old Woman-thus making Inyanga a world free of her bloodstained shrines.
Andas paused, looking up into those wide-set eyes, so fashioned that they lived and held his gaze with theirs, as if there were indeed a spirit yet imprisoned behind the great bronzed metal face. The full lips were curved in a very faint smile, as if what those eyes looked upon provided lazy amus.e.m.e.nt.
He brought up both hands in the salute for one facing his overlord.
"Rider of the Storm Winds, Bearer of the Whip of Ten Lightnings, Judge of Men." His head turned from right to left and back again. "He who is sought but comes only at his own will, who is desired but does not desire, who stands tall in the shadows watching those who follow in his footsteps, though their feet fill not the prints left by his mighty boots.
"He who is one with the sun, with the rain, with the cold, with the dark, with all that comes to Inyanga-look upon me, who am of royal blood, who has come here to undo a wrong, who needs that which lies in secret waiting-"
Once more Andas raised his hands as if to shield his face and his eyes from some awesome glare. And so he stood for as long as a man might count ten. Then he moved closer to the wall. There was directly below the mask a table of polished black-heart, and set into its top were various symbols in the red ivory of nurwall teeth. At mid-point there was a censer of gold from which now curled a wisp of scented smoke.
Facing him, as if to threaten, there lay on either side of that censer a weapon. Both were very old, treasures no man might touch, save after certain rites and ceremonies had been performed, for they were, according to tradition, those that Akmedu himself had carried. One was a dagger of ceremony, its blade concealed in a gemmed sheath. The other, to Andas"s right, was a blaster, of a type so old that he thought its like might not now be found anywhere else in the galaxy.
But the weapons were not what he sought. It was what they and the mask symbolically guarded-that which was death for a lesser man than the Emperor or his rightful heir to lay finger on.
Raising both hands to the mask, leaning at an angle across the table, Andas pressed his thumbs as forcibly as he could to the corners of that faintly smiling mouth. And though the mask appeared to be cast in a single unmovable piece, the mouth slowly opened. Between the lips protruded what he wanted. But again it was a case of using force on a long-untried spring. He pushed with all his strength, stretched as he was in that awkward position.
The mouth opened farther. What it held safe through the years fell with a metallic tinkle to the surface of the table, just missing the lid of the censer. Andas, with a sigh of relief, reached for what the mouth had disgorged.
He saw a key as long as the palm of his hand. The wards were intricate, the shaft a plain bar ending in curiously wrought combinations of symbols, so curled and embedded together that it would take much time and the searching eye of an expert in cyrmic script to translate, though Andas himself knew their message.
This was the heart of the empire. What it unlocked-that was not here but in the great temple of Akmedu"s Shadow. Only two men had the right to hold and use the key-one was the Emperor, the other his heir.
It lay before him. Andas wiped his hands nervously back and forth across the front of his dingy coverall. He believed he had the right-he must! But to take it up would in reality prove whether he did or not. Otherwise, there would be vengeance, dealt by something above and beyond any justice of humankind. So it had happened in the historic past-there was even a visual record of such punishment.
But, he knew! knew! If his grandfather was dead, then there was no rightful emperor but Andas Kastor, and he was Andas. He picked up the key. It was cold and hard in his hand, feeling no different from any other piece of metal. No lightnings flashed; the mask did not denounce him with a wail of sacrilege. So, he was Andas! If his grandfather was dead, then there was no rightful emperor but Andas Kastor, and he was Andas. He picked up the key. It was cold and hard in his hand, feeling no different from any other piece of metal. No lightnings flashed; the mask did not denounce him with a wail of sacrilege. So, he was Andas!
He was alive with triumph, perhaps too much so, for he did not hear the sound until too late to retreat. The man who had entered the room was now between him and the panel exit. For the second time Andas reached to the table top. He held the key in his right hand, but his left closed about the ancient blaster.
It was like facing a strange, half-blurred reflection in the mirror. He should have been prepared for this after what he had learned from Abena. But it is given to very few men, if any, to see themselves as they would be after a long toll of years has pa.s.sed. Rejuvenation had worked in that the man facing him was apparently in the prime of life. But his eyes were weary and older than the face framing them. Now Andas saw those eyes widen a little, though otherwise the other showed no surprise.
"So"-his voice was low, almost toneless-"after all these years Anakue is proven right. And we thought he raved."
Andas had aimed the blaster. Its charge might be long since exhausted. That it would even fire he had no rea.s.surance, but it was the only weapon to hand. He moved along the table cautiously, always watching the man by the bed. He hoped to get the other to move with him and so force him away from that line of escape. But the false emperor remained where he was.
"Clever-" When Andas did not answer, the Emperor stood with his head a little to one side, studying the intruder with growing curiosity. "Very clever indeed. They were artists, those Mengians. Lucky indeed that Anakue cracked and betrayed it all so we could clean them out. Or did we?" His eyes narrowed a little. "You are here, and you must have been decanted somewhere. But why a replacement years out of date? I am no boy. They could not even enthrone you by claiming some miracle of rejuvenation-my basic pattern is in too many files. Now, what did you come for-or were sent for?"
"To take my throne." Andas refused to believe in that flood of words. Of course, this usurper would claim to be the rightful Andas Kastor. And apparently he had had years to build that claim into almost certainty. He had everything but what Andas held now in his right hand!
"Your throne?" The false emperor laughed. "Android doubles have no thrones-in fact, they are outlawed since the Mengian plot was uncovered during Anakue"s abortive rebellion. Whoever started you on this wild venture must be mad." throne?" The false emperor laughed. "Android doubles have no thrones-in fact, they are outlawed since the Mengian plot was uncovered during Anakue"s abortive rebellion. Whoever started you on this wild venture must be mad."
"No one started me." Andas had reached the side of the bed now, but he must win around its wide expanse to reach the panel, and the other had not moved. "I am Andas Kastor. This is rightfully mine as you know-android!"
"Android? Did they program you to believe you were real then, half-man? Where did you come from?"
"Where? In the prison where you had us all kept in sta.s.s."
"Keep him talking," Andas thought. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could hold the other"s interest long enough to make a rush. He did not trust the weapon in his hand to fire, but there was a trick in which it could be used.
"Us all? By the teeth of Gat, do you mean there are all? By the teeth of Gat, do you mean there are more? more? How many Andases did they have with which to inundate our poor empire?" How many Andases did they have with which to inundate our poor empire?"
"I was not the only one of importance kidnaped. There were others-from other worlds."
"Keep him talking!" Andas could not see that the other had relaxed any of his air of vigilance, but there was always a chance.
"We always thought that could be true"-the Emperor nodded-"though the Mengians followed their usual method of destroying their records when threatened. But perhaps we did not get their headquarters after all since they must have had you and these "others" filed somewhere. But I don"t see what moved them to loose you all so late and uselessly."
"They did not release us-we escaped." That he was telling their story did not matter as long as he could keep the false emperor from summoning the guards.
"That explains it." Again the other nodded. "Well, it is a pity that-"
"That what?" Andas held up his right hand, the thumb across the shaft of the key against his palm, so the other could see what he held. "That you should be unmasked at last, android? Do you think that anyone save him who I truly am could hold this-and live? You know the precautions-"
The other stood very still. It was as if the sight of the key had turned him into a statue after the nature of sorcery in the old legends. Then his lips shaped a word Andas read rather than heard.
"That!"
"Yes, that! I have it as my right."
"You are-it is impossible!" The surface of the other"s calm cracked. "It is totally impossible! I am human, as has been proven many times over. Why, I have children-three daughters. Can an android breed?"
Andas smiled bleakly. "We have been told not-but by an emperor"s orders children could be subst.i.tuted or otherwise arranged for. We both know that in the Triple Towers there is only one law-the will of him who has the right to this!" Once more he held up the key.
"Now, call your guards if you wish. Let them see me-with the key!"
"I have guards the sight of that will not affect. Times have changed since the days of my youth. If you have been in sta.s.s, you have not been lately briefed."
His hand raised, and Andas did not try to aim the weapon he held. Instead, he threw it in a way he had learned at Pav from a mountaineer of the Umbangai. It struck the other between the eyes, and he staggered back and went down. However, he had not been rendered unconscious, but was struggling up again when Andas was on him. This time he applied nerve pressure that kept the other limp until he had him bound into a chair.
"Now"-Andas went to the open panel-"tell your guards when they come to hunt if they will. But what I hold is the heart of the empire, and I take it with me. If I fail, I shall make sure that it does not reach you again. And I shall a.s.sert my claim where it can be seen by all, in the temple of Akmedu." Then he thought of something else. With his left hand he felt for a seam pocket and brought out the ring he had taken from Abena.
"You boast of daughters, Emperor who has no right to be. You have a First one-Abena-is that not so?"
He had not gagged the other, yet he did not answer, only watched him, his eyes filled with an emotion Andas could not read. It was not hate as lie first thought, but something darker still.
"Look you at what she threatened me with, Lord of Five Suns and Ten Moons." Mockingly he used the archaic address of the court. "A ring of the Old Woman. So it would seem that filth has once more bespattered the court. A like daughter for a false lord!"
"Not so-"
"Would you see it closer to make sure? Look then!" Andas felt so much the master of the field that he took three swift strides so that he could hold out the ring at the height of the Emperor"s eyes, close enough for him to make sure it was as Andas reported.
"No male can wear this, but it was against her breast when she brought it forth against me. What now of your First Daughter? Though I shall see this does not serve her again. But once one deals with the Old Woman, there is no retreat before death-or after. So, I leave you to think on that also, android, during the short time left you-"
He never finished the sentence. The wide door of the chamber opened without warning, and only his reflexes saved him, for the thing that came scuttling in was a robot, and it aimed a cloud of vapor at him.
Andas jerked back, coughing, his eyes smarting as the edge of the mist touched him. His head whirled dizzily, but he made it to the panel. And, thank the five powers of Akmedu, it snapped shut under his frantic shove. He was still coughing, reeling, not sure how long he could keep his feet, but he forced himself along back down the pa.s.sage. The false emperor, if he carried all Andas"s memories, could comb him out. He would have to fog his trail as well as the robot had almost fogged him! And right now he was sure of nothing, save that he had made it into the ways, that in one hand he held the key and in the other the ring. The latter he fumbled quickly back into his seam pocket. The less he had to do with it, the better.
How had he avoided the robot"s attack? It would-it did-seem impossible now that he considered it, unless it was true, that other old legend, that he who rightfully carried the key had for the s.p.a.ce that it was in his possession the strength of Akmedu!
But powers of the unseen, while they might be potent enough in the right time and place, were not to be depended upon. By all accounts they acted erratically and sometimes even turned against believers who strove to use them. He put no faith in the key except that it would do for him exactly what he planned, prove that he alone had the right to bear it into the temple and use it to unlock the secret there. And if he lived through the next few hours, when he was sure that the false emperor would exert every effort to take him, that was just what he was going to do.
The lamp-what had he done with the lamp? He could not remember now, and there was no time to return and hunt for it. But that meant he must slow his pace, not take a headlong tumble down those stairs at the under-moat section. And it was very hard to slow when every bit of him drove ahead. He must keep alive and out of captivity until he could reach the temple and prove his ident.i.ty.
Beyond that he did not think. Steps-yes, he had reached the underwater way. He shrank from allowing his fingers to slide along the wall, for they crossed those trails of slime, and he had to center his will on keeping touch in spite of such defilement. He wished he had paced off this dank section and knew by counting where he was and how far he had to go. The smell, dark, and slime seemed to last forever.
Then, steps again, and with them a lift of spirit. He had the key pressed tight against him. Though its cold metal never seemed to warm any in his grasp, yet it was to his spirit now what a lamp could have been for his body. The last step-he was in a corridor comparatively free of the moat section"s taint.
He had time now to think coherently, if that whiff of vapor had not left him dull-witted. To return the same way he had come would be the rankest folly. The princess might already have started the hunt. So there remained a long detour, and of all its windings he was not sure.
If only he had not the responsibility for the others, was free to pick his own route, retire into one of the more hidden ways! But if the false emperor had been schooled with all his memories- How had they accomplished this recall for their android anyway? They must have kidnaped him first, put him in two-com-though that was risky. But it did not matter how they had done it, only that it had been done. And he could not hope to have a secret that grinning non-man back there did not share.
So, his own choice was to weave a wild pattern that would eventually bring him to the Court of the Seven Draks and those he had left. How had they fared? The hunt must have started after the crash of the skimmer. But somehow he believed that if any being could escape the guard, it would be Yolyos, though burdened with Grasty and the girl. Well, they would have to take their chances, just as he was doing.
He had had an amazing run of luck. Not that he dared build on that. Only a fool believed that fortune always turned a bright face in his direction. Count now- He tried to make better time, but still he had to count pa.s.sage openings. And he slipped into one that took him at an abrupt angle from the corridor of the princess"s room. Andas cursed the loss of the lamp until he was aware of that strange little gleam from the front of his coverall. His fingers probed and found the ring.
What-? He pulled it out of hiding and was answered by a heightened glow-perhaps no greater than that of the songul"s lower wing at mating time. It was nothing he could really see by, yet it heartened him. He dared not slip it on his finger-it was too charged with all he had been taught to fear from earliest childhood. Yet neither did he put it back into hiding, but held it before him between thumb and forefinger as if it were a lamp and could give him the sight he needed.
There was a forking of the ways at sharp angles. Andas hesitated and then chose left. It was hard to think of what lay above the surface and translate that into what portion of the a.s.semblage of buildings he might be heading for. His only guide was memory. This might almost be the maze in the Garden of Scented Fronds. If one continued to choose always the left path, it would eventually bring him out close to the Court of the Seven Draks.
Andas had made his fourth such turn when he stopped short and forced his breath to the lightest possible in and out flow as he listened. No, he had not been mistaken-sounds! Andas knew of old that such carried through these pa.s.sages in an odd fashion, sometimes sounding farther off than they were, sometimes reversing that process. So he could not be sure how close the trailer was.
He thought, or rather he hoped, that there were not robots after him. Those he feared more than any guardsman. Men could be, with luck, fooled by someone who knew these pa.s.sages. But a robot, perhaps set to hunt for only the faint emanations of human body heat, would track relentlessly.
If he were at all sure of his present position, and he clung to belief that he was, there was a chance ahead he might have an opportunity to see his hunter from a position that would be safe for a short time.
Andas felt along the wall carefully as he went. But it was that so-faint gleam of the ring that served him better than he thought could happen, for with it he caught a glint of metal and so located the first of those loops set deeply into the stone, intended as a skeleton ladder. He tested the first by swinging his full weight on it, though that did not mean they were all as stable.
Stowing both ring and key safely within his coverall, Andas began to climb. He was well above the second floor of the palace apartment in which this was hidden as a shaft when he thought himself safe enough to brace inside that opening and wait. No robot he knew of could climb in such a narrow way as this. And long before it could broadcast his position, he could reach the roof above and strike out in the open for a while if the need arose. Now the dark below showed a glimmer of light. A robot would not carry a lamp, nor would it trail with one-too easy to alert its quarry. Guards then, so Andas felt above him for the next hoop. Still he lingered. Guards could follow him up if they saw the rungs on the wall; guards could even aim a stunner up this vent and bring him down helplessly without exerting any trouble. Guards could- The light of the torch was very dim, yet to one who had moved through the utter dark of the ways it was bright enough. If the one who bore it was alone, Andas could leap down behind him, knock him out, and take that torch and the weapons he must be carrying. The plan built in his mind as a mason would set stone to stone for a wall, though anyone coming on this hunt alone would be a fool-unless he was playing bait- Only one half-seen figure pa.s.sed below. And the more he thought, the more desperately Andas wanted the torch and the weapons the other had. He rested his forehead against the gritty stone of the vent side and tried to picture more clearly what lay ahead.
Yes, there were two side pa.s.sages not too far beyond. And if the hunter had come too far ahead of his fellows, Andas could be on him and away, giving any who followed a choice of three different routes down which to trail him. He had not been in their hands, so they had no personna reading they could feed into a trailer to follow him exactly.
He made his decision and slid down as fast as he could. The light was still ahead. He caught glimpses of it, though it was shut off from time to time by the bulk of the man who carried it. Andas listened-and then he ran lightly forward.
His hand was already aimed for a knock-out blow when he caught better sight of the man he hunted. That was enough to blunt his blow so that he did not kill, or even stun, though he carried the other before him to the floor where they lay, the attacked struggling feebly under him.
"Yolyos!" Andas pulled back. Luckily the light, a very small hand torch, had not smashed during their fall. Andas grabbed it up and turned it full on his own face.
"Yolyos!" he repeated, hardly able to believe that the Salariki was really here.
-9-.
Andas switched the light from his own face to that of the Salariki, who was holding his head, giving low growls of pain. There was a dark smear of blood just above that aggressive bristle of coa.r.s.e mustache, and Yolyos"s ears were flattened to his skull, his eyes narrowed to warning slits.
Then Andas noticed something else. The fur-hair on one of the alien"s broad shoulders was crisped and singed, a red mark rising under the blackened stubs of hair. He had had a very narrow escape from the blaster.
"Ssss-" the sound was close to a hiss. "Sssooo I have found you, or you me, Prince. And by your welcome, you expected others." The Salariki"s voice had begun with that angry hiss but became more articulate.
"The others-where are they?" Andas listened intently but could pick up no other sound.
"You might well ask. But for the fact I proved faster than he expected, I might well be cooked now."
"Who expected? How did you come here?" come here?"
"It is something of a tale. But do we sit here while I tell it? I think by your manner of greeting you have reason to fear other life in these wall roads."
Andas was recalled to the peril at hand. "Yes!"
He arose, the Salariki with him. But Andas had to know what had happened. If it was unwise to continue back to where he had left the others, then he must revise plans.
"You were discovered? I must be sure, for if we cannot go back to the Court of the Seven Draks-"
"The idea when I left seemed to be that you would. They have a reception party waiting. No, I should advise hastening in the other direction, any other direction!"
"Elys-Grasty?"
He heard a snarling sound from Yolyos.
"Yes, our delicate little Elys, she deliberately brought this about. I think we misjudged her as badly as if we were cubs to be netted by the first pair of eyes turned in our direction. Elys who would die without water, who was to be protected, who-"