"You must get control of this man Blade. Get him away from Jantor. Stop him making children. Above all do not harm him until our scientists have examined him. I know, Sybelline, that you plot against Jantor, and I suspect that you plot against me. I advise you to carry out only the first plot-against Jantor. At once. I suggest open war."
Sybelline sneered at the machine. "With fifty men? And they more accustomed to bed than to spear bars? Jantor would be sure to win. I would lose everything."
Onta"s tones were cold. "That is your affair. You are half Morphi and have the intelligence of whole Morphi blood. If you cannot outwit and defeat a Gnoman of the sewers then you deserve to lose."
Sybelline nearly lost her temper. "There are times when intelligence cannot stand up to brute force. If you would only send a small party to help me."
"No," said Onta, "not yet. We are not yet ready. You must handle it yourself. Farewell, Sybelline. Keep in touch at the regular times. And remember, above all things it is important that this stranger Blade not be harmed. Our top scientists have some very interesting theories about him, some of which I do not believe in, but they must have their chance to examine him. Keep it in mind. Goodbye."
His image faded from the screen. Sybelline, raging within, wheeled the machine back into the closet and stored away the mirror and telescopic shaft. She was trembling with frustration. Always the same. Promises that were never kept. While she grew old and wasted her life in the sewers.
She went into the kitchen and had a drink of the Morphi sweet, canned liquid. She chose a can with a cryptic symbol stamped on it. It meant intoxicant, but Sybelline did not care. She very seldom drank the stuff, but what better time than now. She would not go back to the sewers immediately. She would stay up here in the Morphi world, surrounded by the sleepers, drink and let her fantasies take over. For a little time, at least, she would be Queen. And she knew about the pills, to be found in most medicine cabinets, that would clear her head and relieve her sickness like magic.
Sybelline drank deeply. She finished two cans of the drink and started on another. She went to lie on a sofa and gaze out the window at the lambent gray light. Far over the city she could just make out the Government Building, where the city fathers slept. What would they do, she wondered, if she were to turn on the power, then confront them and ask for her reward? Sybelline shook her head. She knew. They would either send her to the pits or back to the sewers to labor, or they might even kill her. This latter was only a slim possibility, for the Morphi rarely executed anyone. They did not have to.
She frowned. If she reactivated the Morphi, she would be betraying the Selenes and would have to answer for it. That would not be so bad if she could force the Morphi to fight for her. But how to do that?
By utter and absolute control of the power. With that threat held over them, she could make the Morphi do anything. She wondered if Jantor had the brains to think along similar lines. But how to accomplish it? The sheer physical problems were insurmountable. Who could she trust so much? Wilf? He was a sullen weakling-she never knew what was in his mind. She did not think he would betray her, but was he capable?
Norn would not do. She was only a pretty Gnomen, now crazed for s.e.x with the man Blade. Love, she called it. Nor would any of her fifty guardsmen fit the task-they were good only to bed her and to report her every move to Jantor.
Sybelline had another can of the intoxicant and began to cry softly. At the same time she was suddenly overcome with s.e.xual desire. She longed for Wilf, for any of her young guardsmen, even for the girl Norn or the man Blade. Why, oh why, was she so cheated of everything? Her fine brain, her body and her long life all wasted.
Suddenly she heard the fierce clamor of arms in the street below. A Gnoman voice screamed in death agony. There were harsh curses and the incessant beat of metal on metal.
Sybelline heard a shout, a stentorian bellow that could only come from Blade.
"Hurry, Sart. Help me pick it up. Heave, man. Heave!"
Sybelline ran to the window. To her left was one of the sewer kiosks. It had been knocked over, torn apart. Scattered around the ruins were four Gnomen bodies, some of them still twitching. Blade and his slave, Sart, were both covered with blood. They were in the act of heaving the great sewer lid back into its seating. Blade was still bellowing, his ma.s.sive sinews shining with blood, his neck muscles bulging as he urged the slave to a final terrible effort.
A Gnoman guard was halfway out of the sewer opening. He swiped viciously with the hooked end of his bar. Blade leaped to escape the blow.
Blade let out a tremendous cry. "Now!"
They flung the sewer lid back into place. It pinched the Gnoman in half, his dying scream muted as the upper half of his body rolled away from the lower trunk, the hands and arms still alive.
Sybelline watched, frozen in mingled horror, excitement and an already beginning hope. This could be her chance. Blade had come to her. She must decide now, this instant, whether or not to commit herself.
Blade pointed to the building from which Sybelline watched. He shouted and gave Sart a shove and they were running toward it. Sybelline turned from the window and left the apartment, running to meet Blade. The intoxicant had made her unsteady and she fell several times. When she glanced down the stairwell from the second floor she saw them battered and b.l.o.o.d.y, resting on their spear bars, gasping for breath. Blade was examining a raw wound in the chest of his slave.
Sybelline shouted down the stairwell. "Blade."
The big man looked up. He was covered with sweat and blood; wounded in half-a-dozen places. Even his coa.r.s.e black beard was matted with blood. But it was his eyes-cold, fierce eyes peering from that dreadful visage-that both frightened and inspired Sybelline. They were bleak eyes and at the same time they flamed with the madness of battle. They stared up at her-alert, murderous and calculating-and Sybelline knew she had to go all the way. No retreat now.
"Up here," she said. "Quickly."
Blade nodded and gave Sart a little push. They began to climb the stairs, keeping the b.l.o.o.d.y spear bars at the ready.
CHAPTER 11.
Only when they entered the apartment did Blade"s battle ecstasy begin to diminish. Wounds, the sight and scent of blood, the killing, had completed his transmogrification. His adaption to DX was not complete and his only aim was survival. The thin wafer of crystal in his brain was his only link to Home Dimension; for the time being he had forgotten it.
And this woman, this white-haired Sybelline who claimed to be Queen of the sewer people, what of her? He set out at once to put her in her place.
"See to Sart"s wounds," he commanded. "Mine are of no consequence. He is a murderer and a rogue, and has a slave"s brain, but I need him. Patch him up as best you can."
When Sybelline hesitated, Blade raised his blood-encrusted spear bar. "Do as you are told."
She was stubborn. "We must talk, you and I. I have much to tell you and to ask of you."
"Later," he said gruffly. "Tend to Sart before he bleeds to death."
Blade went to stand at the window, keeping in the shadow, watching the shattered kiosk and the mammoth sewer lid. It did not move. Jantor and his men would not come that way, he thought. In any case, it would take awhile for Jantor to figure matters out and to take countermeasures.
The fight had been short and b.l.o.o.d.y, but it had gone better than Blade expected. He used Sart as a decoy, luring the subchief to talk, then Blade broke his neck with one terrible blow of his fist. He caught the Gnoman"s spear bar as it dropped. Sart, driven by fear, carried out his orders. He plunged into the crowd of guardsmen and seized a bar before they knew what he was about. Blade came roaring in, yelling battle sounds to stun and frighten them and swinging his bar like a broadsword. He killed four of the guards before they realized what was happening. Sart killed three. Blade drove the demoralized Gnomen up the tunnel while Sart erected the ladder.
The guardsmen sent for help and began to fight back. Blade piled bodies before him as a barricade and held them at bay while Sart put his st.u.r.dy back to the sewer lid. At first he groaned that he could not budge it. Blade threatened him with a terrible fate and the slave, blood spurting from his wound, tried again and again. It moved just as a hundred Gnomen came running down the tunnel toward Blade. Blade leaped up the ladder and joined his strength to Sart"s, together they moved the lid out of its bedding. Blade climbed over Sart"s back into the kiosk, found it too confining and kicked it to bits. He reached down to pluck Sart up just before his legs were crushed by the bars.
Time ran out, and several of the Gnomen made it up the ladder in spite of Blade"s flailing bar. Sart was near dead, so he could not help much in the brief b.l.o.o.d.y fray on the street, but Blade drove him and cursed him and together they had gotten the lid back in place, slicing a guardsman in half in the doing.
Blade turned away from the window. The battle had only begun. Jantor was an enemy now. He would find the body of Alixe and he would come after Blade and Sart. Jantor would think that Blade had plotted against him, that he had thrown in with Sybelline because she knew the secret of the power.
Blade went to the door to watch. Sart was on the floor. Sybelline, revulsion on her smooth, unlined face, was examining his wound. She glanced up at Blade, her green eyes narrowed and calculating. He remembered that she was half Morphi. She would bear watching. Nevertheless he meant to use her as she, no doubt, would try to use him.
Sart had been struck over the heart with the hooked end of a spear bar. The cruel teeth had torn the flesh away, leaving a b.l.o.o.d.y gouge a foot long and two inches across. Blade knelt to see better. Only a thin flap of pink b.l.o.o.d.y tissue covered the heart. Blade watched the heart pulsing strongly like a caged thing against a slight barrier. He marveled at Sart"s endurance.
Sybelline read his thoughts. "They are animals, the Gnomen. Beasts. Savages. Only a Gnoman could survive a wound like this."
Her breath came to his nostrils and he understood that she was drunk. To humble her, he said, "You are half Gnomen, so you should know. What have you been drinking? Fetch me some."
She came back with two of the symbol-marked cans. Blade sniffed the stuff. Not alcohol, as he knew it, but it was plainly an intoxicant and might do. He poured a can onto the wound and Sart bellowed at the sting. He moaned.
"Let me die, master. It is better. We have no chance. Jantor has a thousand men and he will be after us."
Blade grinned evilly. His face was a mask of caked and blackening blood. "You will not die yet. I forbid it. I order you to live as long as I need you."
He cracked an order at Sybelline and she, nearly sober now, cut a thick piece of plastic to fit, placing it over the wound as a shield. This she bound in place with strips cut from plastic sheets. When she was done, Sart was swathed in bandage from chin to waist.
Blade nudged the man with his foot. "Rest here a little time. Jantor will not come for a while and I must have words with Sybelline."
For the first time Sart really appeared to recognize the white-haired woman, to see in her the Sybelline who was Queen Consort to Jantor, if only in name. He nodded and groaned.
"So you have chosen, master. I think it is the wrong choice. She has no warriors."
As they went into another room Blade said, "He thinks we plotted this meeting, that I had it in mind all along."
Sybelline gazed at him. She liked him, yet hated him. She despised him, yet needed him. She knew she must be cautious, yet she found herself on her knees before him, not really willing it, not conscious of volition. She opened his blood-spattered front and took his softness into her hand for a moment. It was not really a s.e.xual act, for both she and Blade knew it had nothing to do with s.e.x. It was submission. Sybelline was shocked at herself, but what other course was open to her?
She handled him for a moment, then stood up. Their eyes met. Blade said: "You are right. We must talk. But first one thing must be understood-you know the secret of the Morphi power and I must know it. With it, we may be able to defeat Jantor and live. So that comes first. Show me the power."
Sybelline cradled her arms across her firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He did not understand. It was not so simple. There were the Selenes to be reckoned with. She remembered Onta"s cold stares and knew that he, the Chief of Brain Secrets, had no concept of mercy.
But when she would have explained, Blade cut her short. He was curt, brutal. "All that can wait. Either show me or explain to me the source of the Morphi power-at once. Now! We have no time to waste."
Sybelline nodded. She knew when she was beaten. "We will have to go over the roofs," she told him. "A great distance. The Selenes will know. Their lights will pick up our images, code them and transmit them on the orbscreens. They will know and they will wonder."
"Let them," said Blade. "How likely are they to take action, and how soon?"
Sybelline smiled for the first time since their meeting. "Not soon, I think. They are patient and secure. They plan long ahead. We need not fear them immediately. But in the end they act. I spoke to Onta only a short time ago and-"
She had meant it to slip out but the look on his face filled her with sudden terror. She had only meant to let him know of her importance, something of her place in the scheme of things; now she wished she had not spoken.
Blade"s eyes were agate hard on hers. He smiled a bit. But all he said was, "I might have known. You spy for the orb people. They have no doubt promised you vast rewards when the time comes. Good. I do not care. I hope you live to enjoy them. Now, let us go to the source of the power. My patience is short."
Sart was on his feet in the kitchen. He had a can of intoxicant in his hand. Nearby was a pile of empties. He gave Blade a dubious grin and hiccoughed, then doubled over in pain. Sybelline stared in distaste. There was nothing worse than a drunken Gnoman.
Blade scattered the cans with a kick. "So you are not yet dead?" he asked Sart. "Good. It is possible that I will be the one to kill you after all, if you disobey me in any small matter. Come."
Sybelline led them up winding stairs to the roof. For miles the rooftops stretched, an unbroken plain. There was no end to them or to the city. The silence shrouded them. The Moon swung its gigantic orb nearby and Blade studied it for a moment, watching the activity on it. He still feared it. If he were fortunate, he thought, he would get the secret of the power and be gone from Dimension X before the Selenes got into the act. Jantor was trouble enough, or would be when he caught up with them.
The three fled over the roofs. They pa.s.sed high over squares, with the plastic parks and the thousands of sleepers.
When Sart complained and began to lag behind, Blade seized him in an iron grip, hustling him along. His own wounds were hurting and he was weary. He longed for food and a bath, for rest and treatment of his hurts, but all that would have to wait. They would have been spotted by now, by both the Selenes and the Gnomen. Every second counted. He had his orders straight from the old Lord himself-find the power.
They came to another park. In the center of it stood a circular building. A narrow catwalk connected the circular building with the apartment building on which they now stood.
Sybelline pointed to the catwalk. "We must cross that. There is a hatchway in the top of that building." She pointed to the circular structure. "Then we go underground. Below the five mile level. It will not be easy to come back up, Blade. There is no power for the lift unless you wish me to turn it on. If I do that the Morphi will awaken."
Blade was pondering, trying to claw some of the caked blood out of his beard. He itched all over. He watched a kiosk in the plastic park and saw movement. Gnomen. They were spotted, right enough, and the Gnomen scouts were keeping pace with them through the sewers. Jantor knew exactly where they were.
Sart moaned at the mention of going underground. Blade told him to be silent. He looked at Sybelline. The trip had told on her. Her white hair straggled, and she breathed hard.
Blade said: "We may have to activate the Morphi. I have not yet decided. But one thing I know. The Gnomen have found us and we had better hurry." He pointed to the kiosk in the park. A dozen Gnomen soldiers had left it and one was pointing at them with his spear bar. The three of them were in clear silhouette against the curdled-b.u.t.termilk sky.
He gave the protesting Sart a push onto the catwalk. "Go first. Hurry."
Sart was a sewer rat and was unfamiliar with high places. He was terrified. He inched along until Blade prodded him with the sharp end of his spear bar. "Get along faster or I will put this through your guts." He meant it and Sart knew he meant it.
Blade held one of Sybelline"s mists in a tight grip. He was taking no chances of losing her. But she came along docilely enough and, in fact, enjoyed his touch.
The Gnomen scouting party left the park and ran beneath the catwalk, shaking their spear bars and yowling insults. Sart would have hurled his bar down at them, but Blade prodded him on and said, "Keep it. You"re going to need it."
They reached the roof of the circular building. Blade watched the Gnomen below. They were battering at a door, trying to gain entrance. There was something strange about this, and suddenly it ticked over in his mind. It was the first locked door he had encountered in the city.
Sybelline led them to a hatchway in the center of the roof. It was bolted down. As she knelt to unfasten the bolts, Blade asked, "What is this place?"
She cast him a sly look. "The place of government. The Morphi councils, all those in power and who have responsibility for running the city, they meet here."
Blade had an idea. He grinned at her. "And they now sleep here, is that it? The power was turned off while they were all here in consultation, discharging their civic duties? It was planned that way?"
Sybelline nodded. "It was. By order of the Selenes. I carried out the orders."
Blade was not surprised. "I should have known"
"You know now. You see that I hold nothing back. I have cast my lot with yours. If we win, I will expect reward; if we fail, I will die with you."
"Later," he said. "All that later. Get this thing open."
She lacked strength to draw the last bolt. Blade slammed it back with his spear bar. He threw open the hatch and stared into a shiny plastic hole. He turned on the woman. "What is this? You play tricks?"
It was a plastic tube, a chute similar to that used in Home Dimension for escape from aircraft. It was sleek and shiny and plunged into darkness at a 45-degree angle.
Sybelline smiled. "It is simple. A chute to the lower levels. Are you afraid, Blade?"
Sart was afraid. He stared at the gaping maw of the chute and wiped away sweat.
Blade said: "I am not afraid. But I am not a fool. You said the five mile level-in this thing? It will be like a free fall. Our speed-"
"I will go first," said Sybelline. "Hurry. Fear nothing. There are braking fingers near the bottom and the landing will be soft and easy. Would I do it else?"
There was a crash from below as the door was battered in. The Gnomen would be on them in a few minutes. Jantor had made a decision. He was coming out of the sewers to fight. He was daring everything to come up into the city, to brave the orbfolk, in an effort to smash Blade and find the secret of the power for himself.
Sybelline was at the edge of the chute. Blade said, "Will they dare follow us down?"
She laughed. "Not the Gnomen. They all have courage and Jantor is cunning, even intelligent, but they will not risk the chute. We had better go now."
Blade nodded. "Go then."
Sybelline gathered her plastic skirt about her and gave a little leap. She landed on her bottom and flung her body backward with her arms trailing. As she disappeared she called out, "Slide in this manner. It is easier."
She was gone. Blade crooked a finger at Sart. "You."
Sart hung back. He began to whimper.
"Hold fast to your spear bar," said Blade. He picked the slave up and hurled him head first into the chute. "Wrong end first," he told the disappearing Sart, "but in your case no great matter."
There was another trap door nearby. Sounds of battering came from beneath it. Blade stalked to it and pounded with his spear bar. "Gnomen! Listen to me. This is Blade who speaks."
The noises ceased. A Gnoman voice growled in reply. "We know you, man Blade. What do you want?"
Blade glanced at the chute twenty paces away. He had plenty of time. "A parley," he told them. "I would send a message to Jantor."