The Many-Coloured Land - 1 (18 page)

"Elizabeth, this is Tully, one of our trusted interviewers. He's been talking to your companions, discussing their plans for the future and answering their questions."

"Have all of them recovered from the passage?" she asked. "I'd like to see them. Talk to them."

"In good time, Lady," said Tully. "All of your friends are safe and in good hands. You mustn't worry. Some of them will be going south with you, while others have chosen to travel to another city in the north. They feel their talents will be appreciated more up there. You'll be interested to know that caravans will be leaving here this very evening, going in both directions."

"I see." But did she? Her thoughts were muddled again. She threw a tentative query at Creyn, which he parried neatly.

Trust in me Elizabeth. All will be well.

She turned back to the little interviewer. "I want to be sure of saying goodbye to those of my friends who are going north." "Certainly, Lady. It will be arranged." The little man put a hand to his necklet and Elizabeth looked at it closely. It seemed identical to the one worn by Creyn except for the dark color of the metal.

Creyn. I want to put this one to the question.

Disdain. He is under our protection. Would you distress him in premature attempts to satisfy curiosity? Questioning would distress him very much. Perhaps permanent harm. He has little data. But do as you wish with him.

"Thank you for telling me about my friends, Tully," she said in a gentle tone.

The man in blue looked relieved. "Then I'll just run along to the next interview, shall I? I imagine Lord Creyn has already answered all of your questions about, um, general matters."

"Not quite all." She reached for pitcher and glass and poured some of the cold drink. "But I expect he will, in time."

CHAPTER FOUR

No sooner had the blue-clad interrogator left the room than Aiken Drum was testing the wooden door, discovering that it was locked, and doing something about it.

He used the tough glassy needle of a leatherworking fid to probe the slot where the brass latch bar came through unI'll he was able to lift a concealed pawl that was preventing the notched bar from moving. Opening the door carefully, he saw the device on the other side that activated the locking mechanism. A tiny stone from the floor served to jam it.

He pulled the door shut and went creeping down the hallway, passing other closed rooms where he assumed his comrades from Group Green were incarcerated. He wouldn't let them out yet; not unI'll he looked things over to see how he might take advantage of this strange situation. There was something powerful as well as peculiar at work here in the Pliocene, and it was obvious that it would take more than the simple-minded schemes of Stein and Richard to con the local yokeb.

... Look out!

He darted into one of the deep window bays that overlooked the castle's inner courtyard. Whipping out his chameleon poncho, he hunkered down in the shadows and tried to blend inconspicuously into the stone floor.

Four sturdy guardians, led by a man in blue, went dashing down the corridor in the direction from which Aiken had come. They never looked in his direction and in a moment the reason became apparent.

There was a roar of rage in the distance and a muffled crash. Heavy blows began to ring against the inner side of one of the reception room doors. Aiken peered from his alcove in time to see the group of castle lackeys cringe away from the first door at the head of the stairway. Even from his viewpoint more than ten meters away, Aiken could see the slabs of thick oak tremble from the force of rhythmic smashes.

The guardian in blue paused outside the door and fingered his torc in an agony of apprehension. The four other men gaped as their leader screeched, "You let him keep the iron axe? You stupid turdsl"

"But, Master Tully, we put enough soporific in his beer to stun a mastodon!"

"But not enough to even slow down this Viking maniac, that's obvious!" Tully hissed. The door vibrated with a particularly mighty blow and the point of Stein's axe blade showed momentarily through broken wood before it was pulled back. "He'll be out of there in minutes! Salim, run for Lord Creyn. We'll need a very large gray torc. Alert Castellan Pitkin and the security squad, too. Kelolo, bring more guardians with a net. And tell Fritz to close the portcullis in case he gets away down the stairway. Hurry! If we can net this bastard as he breaks through we might just salvage this crock of shit!"

The two guardians raced off in-opposite directions. Aiken shrank back into the shadows. Good old Steinie. Somehow he'd seen through the facade of phony goodwill and decided to take direct action. Drugged beer! Good God, suppose the coffee had been doped, too? He hadn't taken more than half a cup though. And he'd tried to play the game their way when Tully interviewed him. He felt certain he had put himself over as a potentially useful but harmless little clown-handyman. Maybe they only drugged the big, dangerous-looking types.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry up, you fools!" Tully wailed. "He's breaking out!"

This time Aiken didn't dare look. But he heard a triumphant bellow and a squawk of splintering wood.

"I'll teach you to lock me in!" Stein's voice called out "Wait I'lll I get my hands on that little white-bellied prick who juiced my beer! Yah! Yah! Yah!"

A very tall figure dressed in scarlet and white went striding past Aiken's refuge, trailed by a jangling squad of warriors, all human, wearing domed kettle-helmets and heavy coats of yellowish scale-armor.

"Lord Creyn!" came Tully's voice. "I've sent for the net and more men... Oh, thank Tana! They're here!"

Lying flat on the floor under the poncho, Aiken wormed over the stones unI'll he had a good view down the corridor. Stein, yelling with each blow of the axe, had enlarged the hole in the door unI'll it was nearly large enough to permit his escape. The people from the castle had regained their discipline with the coming of Creyn and stood waiting.

Six armored men had a strong net deployed on the floor. Two more soldiers poised on either side of the disintegrating door with dubs as thick as a man's arm and studded with rounded metal knobs. The unarmed guardians fell back in a protective line before the towering form of Creyn.

"Hee-yah" cried Stein, kicking the last obstructing pieces of oak from the opening. His horned Viking helmet popped out for an eye-blink and then withdrew for the charge.

He emerged with a leap that carried him nearly to the opposite side of the broad corridor, beyond reach of the net and into the midst of the guardians gathered about their awesome master. Men in white flung themselves at the berserker with despairing screams. Stein hewed at them, both hands swinging the battle-axe in short vicious arcs that sheared through flesh and bone and sent pathetic severed things bouncing from walls and along the floor, fountaining crimson as they rolled. The armored soldiers clubbed at him without effect and tried to seize his arms while he kept chopping at the barrier of living and dead men separating him from Creyn. In some way, Stein knew very well who his principal enemy was.

"I'll get you!" the Viking roared.

Creyn's robes showed scarcely any white now. He stood impassively against the wall, fingering the golden ring about his throat. One soldier finally snatched the horned helmet from Stein's head while another swung a club, catching the giant at the back of the neck with a force that would have crushed the bones of a less heroic vertebral column. For three long seconds, the Viking stood like a grotesque statue, his axe raised within easy striking distance of Creyn's head. Then Stein's fingers loosened. The weapon went tumbling down behind his back. His knees bent slowly and his head fell onto his breast as the net was belatedly flung over him.

One of the warriors drew a short bronze sword and rushed forward, eyes glittering. Before he could strike, be halted as though paralyzed. Another soldier pried the blade from his hand.

"No one is to harm this one," the Tanu overlord said. He moved through the shambles unI'll he could look down upon Stein's unconscious body. Kneeling on the gory flags, Creyn held out his hand for the short sword and used it to cut the meshes covering Stein's head. Then he took a gray metal torc from a large pouch at his belt and fitted it about the fallen rock driller's neck.

"He is harmless now. You may remove the net. Take him to a fresh reception room and clean him up so that I may treat his wounds. He'll be most welcome in the capital"

Rising, Creyn beckoned for a pair of soldiers to accompany him. All three of them made bloody footprints as they walked toward Aiken's hiding place, slowed, and stopped.

"Come out," Creyn said.

"Oh, well!" Aiken gave him a grin as he scrambled to his feet. He flourished his hat in a mock salute and bowed from the waist. Before he realized what was happening, Creyn bent down and snapped something around his neck.

Oh, Christ, Aiken thought Not me, too!

You are a completely different breed of cat, Aiken Drum, and bound for more sophisticated amusements than your muscular friend.

Aiken craned his head to look into the wintry eyes far above him. The Tanu's hair that had been so sleek and shining was clotted now with the blood of men who had died defending him, died unwillingly, from the sound of their hopeless screams, freed from the symbol and source of their bondage only at the moment that Stein's blade severed their heads from their bodies.

"I suppose you can do what you like with us. once you've put on these fewkin' dog collars," Aiken said bitterly, touching the thing about his own throat It was warm. For one fraction of a second he felt a flash of pleasure born in his loins go racing along his nerves like lightning through wires before it exited his body through tingling fingers and toes.

What the hell!

Did you like that? It's only a sample of what we can give you. But our greatest gift will be the fulfillment of your own potential, freeing you even as you serve us.

The way these poor sods served? Headless trunks piled limbs awash in blood?

Amusement. Your own torc is silver and not gray. As befits a latent metapsychic made operant You're going to enjoy the Pliocene very much, my lad.

"Well, I'll be damned!" Aiken exclaimed aloud. Delight, Delight. DELIGHT! "How many of the functions am I strong in?"

Find out for yourself.

A built-in master control mechanism in the collar for you guys I presume.

What do you think?

Aiken gave a crooked grin. "Better than gray, less than gold. Tell you what. I'll take it!" He folded his poncho carefully and stowed it back into his lumbar pouch. "What next, Chief?"

"We'll let you wait in a fresh reception room for now. One with a more effective lock. In a few hours, you'll be leaving for our capital city, Muriah. Don't be apprehensive. Life here in Exile can be very pleasant."

As long as I know who's boss? Afirm.

The guards hustled Aiken Drum through a door. He called over his shoulder, "Have, one of your flunkies bring me a good stiff drink, will you, Chief? All this fighting raises a terrible thirst in a man."

Creyn had to laugh. "It will be done." Then the guards slammed the door and barred it.

CHAPTER FIVE

Amerie had heard the sounds of fighting in the corridor outside and pressed her ear to the boards of the locked door to confirm her suspicions. It had to be Stein or Felice. Could one of them have been driven insane by the shock of the translation? Or was there a good reason for the violent outburst?

She tore open her backpack and rummaged in the Smallholder Unit for the small plass envelope holding the cord-saw. Dragging one of the benches over to the window, she tucked her skirts into her rope belt and jumped up.

Cut halfway through the upper bars of the brass grille on the inside! Cut all of the way through the bottom bars, then lever the whole thing outward with the top of another bench after I smash it apart! I could unbraid the rug and make a rope out of the wool, but wait! The decamole bridge sections would work, two for a ladder and the third to cross over the area with those damn bear-dogs,

"Oh, Sister. What are you doing?"

She whirled around, hampered by both index fingers being engaged in the rings of the cord-saw. Tully and a burly guardian stood at the open door. The little interviewer's tunic was covered with dark stains.

"Please come down, Sister. What a dreadfully reckless thing to think of! And all so unnecessary. Believe me, you are in no danger."

Amerie locked eyes with him, then stepped down, resigned. The big guardian held out his hand for the saw and she gave it to him without a word. He-tucked it into one of the pockets of her pack and said, "I'll carry this for you, Sister."

Tully said, "We are having to expedite our usual interview program because of a most regrettable accident. So if you will accompany Shubash and me..."

"I heard sounds of fighting," she said. "Who was hurt? Was it Felice? " She strode to the open door and looked out into the corridor. "Merciful God!"

Guardians had removed the dead and injured, and cleanup crews were sluicing the walls and floor with big buckets of water; but traces of mayhem were still sickeningly apparent.

"What have you done? " Amerie cried.

"The blood is that of our own people." Tully was somber. "It was shed by your companion, Stein. He, by the way, is unhurt except for bruises. But five of our men are dead and seven others seriously injured."

"Oh, Lord. How did it happen?"

"I'm sorry to say that Stein went berserk. It must have been a delayed reaction to the temporal translation. Passage through the time-portal sometimes triggers deeply buried psychic explosives. We try to protect both the travelers and ourselves by confining new arrivals to these reception rooms for a while during the recovery period, which is why your door was locked."

"I'm sorry about your people," she told him with sincere regret. "Steinie is, strange, but a dear man when you get to know him. What will happen to him now? "

Tully fingered his gray collar. "We who guard the gateway have our duty and at times it is a heavy one. Your friend has received treatment that should preclude another attack. He won't be punished any more than a sick man is punished for his illness . . . Now, Sister, we must hurry you along to the next phase of our interview. The Lady Epone requires your assistance."