Which was just what Hadon was doing. He walked away, holding a torch, a dagger and a sword in their sheaths. There was no doubt now which one of the two tunnels to take. Down the one to his right was a faint light, a murmur of voices. And then a blood-stopping sound, a sudden ouburst of barking! Dogs!
28.
Hadon walked or trotted for what must have been hours. He went down and up and along, confused and thirsty. Once he came out onto another apron by the river, where he drank deeply. But there was no boat so he retraced his steps until he found another branch and went down it. Several times he heard the barking of dogs and the shouts of men, but he got away each time. At least he put a lot of distance between them and himself. Though the hounds had his scent, they could not climb the shafts. They had to be lowered or raised by ropes, so his pursuers lost much time at these places.
They would surely catch up with him in the end, unless he could find a way out of this three-dimensional labyrinth.
He went down a shaft about thirty feet deep which ended in the ceiling of a tunnel. He dropped from the bottom rung to the stone floor. Five feet away was a seeming dead end, a wall composed of granite slabs, ten inches wide and six inches high, set in concrete. He went to it and pushed on both ends but it resisted his hardest shoves. Either the bronze pivot mechanism was not operating or else it was truly what it looked like.
Ten feet the other way was a shaft. He went to it and looked down. His torchlight glittered on water, either the river or a well. A faint red light glowed at the top of the shaft—the open air. The great fires outside the city were reflecting from the clouds, providing a flickering light up there, a dim tawny oval.
But there were no rungs in the sides of the shaft. And the walls sloped slightly in from this point up.
The tunnel continued fifteen feet away at the other side of the well. He could not figure out why there was no bridge here. Did the carvers of the passage intend the wayfarer to jump the gap? Or had there once been a wooden bridge here, now rotten? Or a winch for a well?
He did not know what the situation had been. He did know what it was now.
He heard far-off barking and returned to the shaft he'd come down on. Torches flared at its head and several faces looked down at him. Frantic barking drowned out their cries, though their open mouths made it evident they were announcing his presence.
Hadon stepped quickly back out of sight. He turned and, holding the torch to one side, retreated to the wall of masonry. There he crouched, then ran as swiftly as he could; on reaching the lip of the well, he leaped.
He landed easily enough and with inches to spare on the other side. Fifteen feet was not much of a long jump for him. His pursuers were going to be stopped for a while, though. He doubted that the dogs would dare the jump. And the soldiers would have to shed their heavy bronze helmets and cuirasses before they made the attempt. As it was, only the most daring and agile would attempt it.
For a moment he thought about waiting on the other side of the gap to knock the jumpers back down the well. But the idea, though attractive, was not workable. The soldiers could throw spears at him, or sling missiles he couldn't dodge. No, he could only hurry on, hoping that the leap over the abyss would make them hesitate for a while.
The tunnel across the well was about fifteen feet wide. This side of it was narrower, only seven feet wide. He went along it for about a hundred feet, coming to a flight of steps cut into the stone and leading downward. The bottom landing was about twenty feet below, from which the tunnel continued. A few minutes later he came to a heavy wooden door secured by two enormous bars.
He shot the bars and opened the door. Its iron hinges screamed. Hoping there was no one on the other side to be warned by the noise, he passed through the entrance. He was in a large room, about sixty feet long, thirty wide and fifty high. It was empty except for three ingots of gold. Hadon thought this must once have been a storeroom, emptied except for the three ingots. Or perhaps it was being refilled and the three ingots were the first to be placed here.
That did not matter. What did was that near the door, on the sweating stone wall, was an incised sign, the same Klyhy had pointed out, a horizontal line just below a circle. Near it was the carved recess with the handgrip.
Hadon went across the chamber to the other side. There was another door here, but this was unbolted. Just outside the doorway, another sign and recess with handgrip were revealed in the torchlight.
Past the door the tunnel ran straight as a sword for as far as he could see.
Hadon went back to the chamber, trying to figure out the peculiar placing of the bars on the doors.
Why bar the doors at all?
Was it to keep someone else from coming this way?
Hadon had a hunch that the long straight tunnel led to a place outside the city walls. And since there were outlaws, runaway slaves, wild Gokako and even Nukaar, the hairy half-men of the woods, out there, the doors might be barred against them.
Well, he would find out what this meant later on. Or perhaps he would not. It was of no immediate importance.
He looked through the door he had entered by. A light shone far down the tunnel, so somebody had made the jump—more probably somebodies, from the speed at which the light was advancing. One or two men would not proceed so boldly. Not when they knew he might be waiting in ambush.
Hadon ran back to the other door. He stopped just past it and put his fingers inside the recessed grip. He leaned back and pulled with all his strength. The stone section slid groaning out, then suddenly it was free and he had to stagger backward to keep from falling. Then he was running, while behind him the ceiling, which was made of bricks and cement for about thirty feet, fell in. The crash was loud, booming down the tunnel, echoing. There was no dust, since the moisture was too heavy on the stones for that.
He heard or saw nothing of pursuit after that. Even if the bricks had not filled the tunnel completely, they would have given pause to the King's men. They would wonder how many more such traps lay ahead of them. But Hadon did not think the passage would be cleared for some time. The mechanism of the ancient priestesses had worked quite well.
At the end of about thirty minutes he came to a narrow flight of steps. He went up this spiral, coming suddenly into a cleft just wide enough for his shoulders between two granite walls. The clouds shone redly above him. The steps had disappeared, replaced by a steep incline of polished granite. He went up it to find himself in the open air. He was standing on top of a huge boulder.
Below him was a tiny round temple of marble, shining whitely in the light of a big fire. It was more of a shrine than a temple, consisting of a circle of white marble pillars with a conical gold-plated roof. The floor was a mosaic of varicolored stones with a great statue in its center. Just in front of the statue was a fire, burning in a vast bronze box. Hadon had been confused at first. Now he knew where he was. He was on the Isle of Lupoeth. There, a mile west across the lake, was the city of Opar. Its towers and domes and walls shone in the fires still blazing on both sides of it. The tunnel had gone under the river beneath the city and led to this islet—this islet sacred to the demigoddess Lupoeth and forbidden to the human male. He had committed sacrilege, though unknowingly.
The deed could not be hidden from Kho, he knew. But perhaps, since he had come here while in Her service and he had not known what he was doing, he might be forgiven. If he could get away before the three priestesses discovered him, he might be able to get through this without harmful consequences. Since he could cover the whole islet with one sweep of his eyes, and since he could not see the three women, he knew they would be in their tiny quarters right below him, in the hollowed-out part of the boulder. One would be awake, since the fire had to be tended at all times.
He went down the back of the boulder, which was like a small cliff here. The river lapped the foot of the great rock, so he had to wade around the vertical shore. Once he slipped into some deep water and swam around until his feet touched bottom
again. He rounded the whole body of land in five minutes, failing to find a boat.
The three priestesses had their food and firewood brought to them, probably by water, since the tunnel would be used only for emergencies or secret messages.
There was only one thing to do. He would have to swim the river to get back to Opar. But the current was strong in its middle, and he was exhausted from the emotional and physical stresses of the day and night.
He might make it to the shore, but he would be far past Opar when he got there.
On the other hand, he thought, why not swim to the eastern, the near, shore? There would be fishermen or hunters along the strip of land between the river and the eastern cliffs. They would have boats, and he would just borrow one.
That was the sensible thing to do.
Hadon sat in water up to his waist and rested a moment. The temple looked eerie in this strange light from the clouds and the fire within the bronze box. The giant figure of Lupoeth, three times life-size, towered in the midst of the marble pillars. It was in the stiff, graceless style of the ancients, of marble painted with flesh tones and hair and eye colors. As was still common in those days, the body from the waist down was theriomorphic, in this case a crocodile's hindquarters. Her breasts were huge and rounded, each marked with the stylized head of a crocodile, Lupoeth's totem. Her eyes were painted blue. Her hair was long and black, crowned by a triple tier of gold set with diamonds. In her right hand she held an immense spear of gold.
Through the pillars Hadon could see the dark opening carved into the foot of the boulder. Where was the priestess who tended the sacred fire?
This question was answered suddenly and startlingly. A white figure rose from behind a small boulder to his right. It advanced toward him, becoming somewhat more distinct as it neared the light from the fire in the bronze box. It was not a ghost, as he had thought for a moment when he had first seen it. It was a woman in a white robe with a hood.
Apparently the light was strong enough to distinguish Hadon. The priestess stopped at the edge of the solid rock shore and stood still, looking at him for a long time. Finally, nervous from the prolonged inspection and the silence, he said, "Guardian of the Temple of Lupoeth! I am Hadon, son of Pheneth and Kumin the numatenu, and I am the victor of the Lesser Games of Opar and the Great Games of Khokarsa. I am a refugee…"
The woman threw her hood back, revealing a middle-aged face. She said, "I know you, Hadon. Do you not remember Neqokla, keeper of the Chamber of the Moon for many years? I used to give you sweets now and then and a hug and a kiss too. I expected great things of you, Hadon, though I also predicted that you would get into much trouble."
"Neqokla!" Hadon said joyfully. "Now I remember! You were sent here about twelve years ago! I have not seen you since! And yes, I cherish the memories of your kind deeds and words. You were very good to a small boy who was only the son of poor parents."
"How did you get there?" she said. Then, "Of course, you came up through the tunnel to the river! I thought I felt a shaking of the earth some time ago, but I had been dozing off and I told myself that I had dreamed it. Or Lupoeth was making the earth shake to wake me up and remind me of my duty."
"The quivering of the earth was caused by the collapse of part of the tunnel outside the great chamber which contains three gold ingots," Hadon said. "I set off the trap to escape from the King's men. I did not know the tunnel led here. I committed sacrilege unknowingly."
"We only know what happened in the city up to late yesterday evening," Neqokla said. "The supply-boat captain gave us the news, saying he might not be able to return in the scheduled two days. We watched the fires for a long while and made some sacrifices to Lupoeth, asking her to guard the city she founded and aid the people of Kho in their battle against the heretics."
"As for the sacrilege, I am sure that some slight penance will satisfy Lupoeth. You are here in the service of Kho, her mother, Mother of All."
"In that case," Hadon said, "may I come ashore?"
"You may," she said, "but you may also have to take to the river again."
She pointed past him. He turned and saw an assemblage of torches moving out from the city toward the island.
Neqokla said, "They are coming this way. Those torches are fixed to a longboat manned by the King's soldiers. They must have guessed you would be here."
"How could they?" Hadon asked. Then, "I suppose the men blocked by the trapfall returned to the King to report. He must have determined from the location of the trapfall that it was under the river—then he would have also figured out that the tunnel was used by the priestesses to get to and from this islet. I have betrayed you!"
"It couldn't be helped," Neqokla said. "I'll rouse the others and we'll hear your story quickly so we can plan what to do."
She hastened toward the round doorway carved at the base of the immense boulder. Their voices must have awakened the two women, however, since they appeared in their ghostly white robes before she had reached the temple. She beckoned to them and they came swiftly. One was old, white-haired and bent-backed, crippled with arthritis. This was the chief, Awikloe. The other, Kemneth, was about twenty-five, a pretty girl who had been with Hadon at the temple school.
Neqokla explained quickly all she knew and Hadon filled in the missing data. Kemneth and Neqokla brought a great wooden chair from the quarters for the old woman. The chair was some twenty feet in front of the fire, which Neqokla replenished with fuel.
"Gamori is a desperate and a hard man," Awikloe said. "He has already sinned greatly by violating sanctuary and attacking and killing priestesses and worshipers of Kho. He will not hesitate to violate another taboo and set foot on this island. He may even plan to kill us, though that would be going far even for him. As for his men, they must be as conscienceless and greedy as he, otherwise he would never have gotten them into the boat."
"Pardon, Awikloe," Hadon said. "But you sound as if you think Gamori himself will be on that boat."
"I think he will be," she said, flexing her gnarled hands. "He will want to make sure you are killed; he will want to witness your death himself. Besides, his men, no matter how hard they may be, would be reluctant to touch taboo soil unless they were led by the King himself. But we shall see whether or not I am right."
"If I am not here, then they will have no excuse to come ashore," Hadon said. "I can swim to the eastern shore."
"After what you have been through?" Awikloe said. "Be truthful, Hadon. Could you swim half a mile in your exhausted condition?"
"I might," Hadon said.
"And more likely you would not be able to," she said. "Anyway, this is too good a situation to abandon. This business could be settled once and for all. If you kill Gamori, the rebellion would fall apart."
"And how can I do that when he has a boatful of men?" Hadon said. "Providing, of course, that he is on the boat."
"That is up to you," she said. "From what I have heard, you have been tricky enough. You are a man of many turns, equal to every occasion of danger, improvising where needful, eluding death where others would have been caught."
"Even the king of foxes was caught in the duckhouse," Hadon said.
"Don't quote proverbs to me, young man."
"If I stand here boldly defying him, his men will cast spears at me until I am a human porcupine, bristling with quills," Hadon said. "No, I must not be seen at first, at least not recognized."
Hadon asked some questions and then explained what might be done. The three agreed to do as he proposed. They did not think it had a high chance of success, but it was better than nothing.
And so it was that Gamori and his men saw an impressive sight when they neared the islet of the Temple of Lupoeth. The fire was blazing high, its light illuminating the giant statue from below, causing highlights and deep shadows. Lupoeth looked grim and terrible, harshness forming around the eyes and mouth. The aged priestess sat huddled in her chair, her back to the fire, her hooded face in darkness. The middle-aged
priestess stood by the great bronze box, ready to throw more fuel on the flames. She too was shrouded in white. The young priestess stood at the right of the old woman, but she had removed all her clothing and gashed her breasts and arms and legs with a small sharp knife. Her unbound hair moved without a wind. Presently, as the prow of the boat ground gently against the rocky shore, Gamori saw why the hair seemed to have a life of its own: a small flat head with a darting split tongue raised from the mass, its head turned toward Gamori.
"By the venom of this snake, I summon death!" the naked young woman cried out. "By my blood I summon yours!"
There was a murmur among the men, thirty paddlers, a steersman and an officer who stood behind Gamori at the prow. The paddlers had put their blades on the deck and had unsheathed their swords or gripped their spears. Gamori held an officer's stabbing sword in his left hand. He was helmeted and cuirassed and wore a long scarlet cloak, a scarlet kilt to which the feathers of the kingfisher were sewn and sandals of hippopotamus hide. A thick white bandage was around his arm, covering the wound inflicted by Hadon's spear. Since he was left-handed, he could still handle the sword effectively.
"Do not come ashore!" the old priestess said in a high quivering voice. "This is sacred soil, Gamori, and all males are forbidden to touch it!"
Something was wrong with the tableau, but Gamori could not grasp just what it was. Then the officer, a colonel, tugged at his cloak and said in a low voice, "Your Majesty! The golden spear of Lupoeth is missing!"
Gamori looked up past the white figure on the chair and through the pillars and he felt a sudden shock. It was true! The great golden spear was gone! The hand of the idol was still bent, but it held only air.
"Where is it?" he said, looking wildly around the island. The fire lit up the white pillars and the white shrouds of the two priestesses and the white, darkly stained figure of the young priestess. It burnished the statue of Lupoeth, who seemed to be glaring at him, and the towering face of the gigantic boulder, said to have fallen from heaven shortly before Lupoeth and her expedition came to this river valley.