It was a moment before she saw what had made her uneasy without realizing why. No water was spilling from the paddles down to the pool. The water just seemed to disappear after striking them.
She looked wonderingly from them to him. “I see what you mean.”
He spread out his hands. “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m not a mage or a sorcerer. But…that water has to be going someplace.”
They put their boots back on, and he unshot the bar of the door. It led to another flight of steps, ending in another door. They went down a corridor the walls of which were bare stone. But there were also lit torches set in brackets on them.
At the end of the corridor they came to a round room. Light came down from torches; the room was actually a tall shaft. Looking up from the bottom, they could see a black square outlined narrowly by bright light at its top.
Voices came from above.
“It has to be a lift,” Smhee whispered. He said something in his native tongue that sounded like a curse.
“We’re stuck here until the lift comes down.”
He’d no sooner spoken than they heard a squeal as of metal, and the square began descending slowly.
“We’re in luck!” Smhee said. “Unless they’re sending down men to see what’s happened to the wheels.”
They retreated through the door at the other end. Here they waited with their blades ready. Smhee kept the door open a crack.
“There are only two. Both are carrying bags and one has a haunch of meat. They’re going to feed the bears and the spiders!”
Masha wondered how the men intended to get past the bears to the arachnids. But maybe the bears attacked only strangers.
“One man has a torch.” he said.
The door swung open, and a Raggah wearing a red-and-black striped robe stepped through. Smhee drove his dagger into the man’s throat. Masha came out from behind the door and thrust her sword through the other man’s neck.
After dragging the bodies into the room, they took off the robes and put them on.
“It’s too big for me,” she said. “I look, ridiculous.”
“Cut off the bottom,” he said, but she had already started doing that.
“What about the blood on the robes?”
“We could wash it out, but then we’d look strange with dripping robes. We’ll just have to take a chance.”
They left the bodies lying on the floor and went back to the lift. This was an open-sided cage built of light (and expensive) imported bamboo. The top was closed, but it had a trap door. A rope descended through it.
They looked up but could see no one looking down.
Smhee pulled on the rope, and a bell clanged. No one was summoned by it, though.
“Whoever pulls this up is gone. No doubt he, or they, are not expecting the two to return so early. Well, we must climb up the pull-ropes. I hope you’re up to it.”
“Better than you, fat one,” Masha said.
He smiled. “We’ll see.”
Masha, however, pulled herself up faster than he. She had to climb up onto the beam to which the wheel was attached and then crawl along it and swing herself down into the entrance. Smhee caught her as she landed on the edge, though she didn’t need his help.
They were in a hallway the walls of which were hung with costly rugs and along which was expensive furniture. Oil lamps gave an adequate illumination.
“Now comes the hard part,” he said between deep breaths. “There is a staircase at each end of this hall. Which leads to the mage?”
“I’d take that one,” she said, pointing.
“Why?”
“I don’t exactly know why. I just feel that it’s the right one.”
He smiled, saying, “That’s as good a reason as any for me. Let’s go.”
Their hands against each other inside their voluminous sleeves, but holding daggers, the hoods pulled out to shadow their faces, they walked up the stairs. These curved to end in another hall, even more luxuriously furnished. There were closed doors along it, but Smhee wouldn’t open them.
“You can wager that the mage will have a guard or guards outside his apartment.”
They went up another flight of steps in time to see the back of a Raggah going down the hall. At the corner, Masha looked around it. No one in sight. She stepped out, and just then a Raggah came around the corner at the right-hand end of the hall. She slowed, imperceptibly, she hoped, then resumed her stride. She heard Smhee behind her saying, “When you get close, within ten feet of her, move quickly to one side.”
She did so just as the Raggah, a woman, noticed the blood on the front of her robe. The woman opened her mouth, and Smhee’s thrown knife plunged into her belly. She fell forward with a thump. The fat man withdrew his knife, wiped it on the robe, and they dragged her through a doorway. The room was unlit. They dropped her near the door and went out, closing it behind them.
They went down to the end of the hall from which the woman had come and looked around the corner. There was a very wide and high-ceilinged corridor there, and from a great doorway halfway down it came much light, many voices, and the odor of cooking. Masha hadn’t realized until then how hungry she was; saliva ran in her mouth.
“The other way,” Smhee said, and he trotted toward the staircase. At its top, Masha looked around the corner. Halfway down the length of this hall a man holding a spear stood before a door. By his side crouched a huge black wolfish dog on a leash.
She told Smhee what she’d seen.
As excited as she’d ever seen him, he said, “He must be guarding the mage’s rooms!”
Then, in a calmer tone, “He isn’t aware of what we’ve done. He must be with a woman or a man. Sexual intercourse, you know, drains more out of a person than just physical energy. Kemren won’t be sensitive to the wheels just now.”
Masha didn’t see any reason to comment on that. She said, “The dog didn’t notice me, but we can’t get close before he alerts the guard.”
Masha looked behind her. The hall was still empty. But what if the mage had ordered a meal to be delivered soon?
She told Smhee what she’d just thought. After a brief consultation, they went back down the stairs to the hall. There they got an exquisitely silver-chased tray and put some small painted dishes and gold pitchers on it. These they covered with a golden cloth, the worth of which was a thousand times more than Masha could make if she worked as dentist and midwife until she was a hundred years old.
With this assemblage, which they hoped would look like a late supper tray, they went to the hall. Masha had said that if the mage was with a sexual partner, it would look more authentic if they carried two trays. But even before Smhee voiced his objections, she had thought that he had to have his hands free. Besides, one tray clattering on the floor was bad enough, though its impact would be softened by the thick rug.
The guard seemed half-asleep, but the dog, rising to its feet and growling, fully awakened him. He turned toward them, though not without a glance at the other end of the hall first. Masha, in front of Smhee, walked as if she had a right to be there. The guard held the spear pointing at them in one hand and said something in his harsh back-of-the-throat speech.
Smhee uttered a string of nonsense syllables in a low but equally harsh voice. The guard said something. And then Masha stepped to one side, dropping the tray. She bent over, muttering something guttural, as if she were apologizing for her clumsiness.
She couldn’t see Smhee, but she knew that he was snatching the blowpipe from his sleeve and applying it to his lips. She came up from her bent position, her sword leaping out of her scabbard, and she ran toward the dog. It bounded toward her, the guard having released the leash. She got the blade out from the leather just in time and rammed it into the dog’s open mouth as it sprang soundlessly toward her throat. The blade drove deep into its throat, but she went backward from its weight and fell onto the floor.
The sword had been torn from her grip, but the dog was heavy and unmoving on her chest
. She pushed him off though he must have weighed as much as she. She rolled over and got quickly, but trembling, to her feet. The guard was sitting down, his back against the wall. One hand clutched the dart stuck in his cheek. His eyes were open but glazing. In a few seconds the hand fell away. He slumped to one side, and his bowels moved noisily.
The dog lay with the upper length of the sword sticking from its mouth. His tongue extended from the jaws, bloody, seeming almost an independent entity, a stricken worm.
Smhee grabbed the bronze handle of the door.
“Pray for us, Masha! If he’s barred the door on the inside…!”
The door swung open.
Smhee bounded in, the dead man’s spear in his hands. Masha, following, saw a large room the air of which was green and reeking of incense. The walls were covered with tapestries, and the heavy dark furniture was ornately carved with demons’ heads. They paused to listen and heard nothing except a faint burbling noise.
“Get the bodies in quickly!” Smhee said and they dragged the corpses inside. They expected the dreaded mage to walk in at any time, but he still had not appeared when they shut the door.
Smhee whispered, “Anyone coming by will notice that there is no guard.”
They entered the next room cautiously. This was even larger and was obviously the bedroom. The bed was huge and round and on a platform with three steps. It was covered with a rich scarlet material brocaded in gold.
“He must be working in his laboratory,” Smhee whispered.
They slowly opened the door to the next room.
The burbling became louder then. Masha saw that it proceeded from a great glass vessel shaped like an upside-down cone. A black-green liquid simmered in it, and large bubbles rose from it and passed out the open end. Beneath it was a brazier filled with glowing coals. From the ceiling above a metal vent admitted the fumes.
The floor was mosaic marble in which were set pentagrams and nonagrams. From the center of one rose a wisp of evil-smelling smoke. A few seconds later, the smoke ceased.
There were many tables holding other mysterious equipment and racks holding long thick rolls of parchment and papyrus. In the middle of the room was a very large desk of some shiny reddish wood. Before it was a chair of the same wood, its arms and back carved with human-headed dragons.
The mage, clad in a purple silk robe which was embroidered with golden centaurs and gryphons, was in the chair. His face was on the desk, and his arms were spread out on it. He stank of rancid butter.
Smhee approached him slowly, then grabbed the thin curly hair of the mage’s top-knot and raised the head.
There was water on the desk, and water ran from the dead man’s nose and mouth.
“What happened to him?” she whispered.
Smhee did not reply at once. He lifted the body from the chair and placed it on the floor. Then he knelt and thumped the mage’s chest.
The fat man rose smiling.
“What happened is that the reversal of the wheels’ motion caused the water which should have fallen off the paddles to go instead to the mage. The conversion of physical energy to magical energy was reversed.”
He paused.
“The water went into the mage’s body. He drowned!”
He raised his eyes and said, “Blessed is Weda Krizhtawn, the goddess of water! She has her revenge through her faithful servant, Rhandhee Ghee!”
He looked at Masha. “That is my true name, Rhandhee Ghee. And I have revenged the goddess and her worshippers. The defiler and thief is dead, and I can go home now. Perhaps she will forgive some of my sins because I have fulfilled her intent. I won’t go to hell, surely. I will suffer in a purgatory for a while and then, cleansed with pain, will go to the lowest heaven. And then, perhaps…”
“You forget that I am to be paid,” she said.
“No, I didn’t. Look. He wears golden rings set with jewels of immense value. Take them, and let’s be off.”
She shuddered and said, “No. They would bring misfortune.”
“Very well. The next room should be his treasure chamber.”
It was. There were chests and boxes filled with emeralds, diamonds, turquoises, rubies, and many other jewels. There were golden and silver idols and statuettes. There was enough wealth to purchase a dozen of the lesser cities of the empire and all their citizens.
But she could only take what she could carry and not be hampered in the leaving.
Exclaiming ecstatics, she reached toward a coffer sparkling with diamonds.
At her touch, the jewels faded and were gone.
She cried out in anguish.
“They’re products of his magic!” Smhee said. “Set here to fool thieves. Benna must have taken one of these, though how he got here and then away I’ve no idea! The jewel did not disappear because the mage was alive and his powers were strong, But I’ll wager that not long after the rat carried the jewel off, it disappeared. That’s why the searchers found no jewel though they turned the city upside-down and inside-out!”
“There’s plenty of other stuff to take!” she said.
“No, too heavy. But he must have put his real jewels somewhere. The next room!”
But there were no other rooms.
“Don’t you believe it,” Smhee said. He tore down the tapestries and began tapping on the walls, which were of a dense-grained purplish wood erected over the stone. Presently, he said, “Ah!” and he moved his hands swiftly over the area. “Here’s a hole in the wood just big enough to admit my little finger. I put my finger in thus, and I pull thus, and thus…!”
A section of the wood swung out. Masha got a burning lamp and thrust it into the room beyond. The light fell on ten open chests and twenty open coffers. Jewels sparkled.
They entered.
“Take two handsful.” Smhee said. “That’s all. We aren’t out of here yet.”
Masha untied the little bag attached to her belt, hesitated, then scooped out enough to fill the bag. It almost tore her heart apart to leave the rest, but she knew that Smhee’s advice was wisdom. Perhaps, some day, she could come back for more. No. That would be stupid. She had far more than enough.
On the way out, Smhee stopped. He opened the mage’s robe and revealed a smooth-shaven chest on which was tattooed a representation of a fearful six-armed four-legged being with a glaring long-tusked face. He cut around this and peeled the skin off and put it rolled and folded into a small jar of ointment. Replacing the jar in his bag, he rose, saying, “The goddess knows that I would not lie about his death. But this will be the proof if any is demanded.”
“Maybe we should look for the mage’s secret exit,” she said. “That way, we won’t run into the Raggah.”
“No. At any moment someone may see that the guard is missing. Besides, the mage will have put traps in his escape route, and we might not elude those.”
They made their way back to the corridor of the lift shaft without being observed. But two men stood in front of the entrance to the lift. They were talking excitedly and looking down the shaft. Then one ran down the corridor, away from the corner behind which the two intruders watched.
“Going to get help before they venture down to find out why the two feeders haven’t come back,” Smhee muttered.
The man who’d stayed was looking down the shaft. Masha and Smhee took him from behind, one cutting the throat, the other stabbing him in the back. They let themselves down on the ropes and then cut them before going down through the open trapdoor. But as they left the cage, a spear shot through the trapdoor and thudded point-first into the floor. Men shouted above.
“They’ll bring ropes and come down on those,” Smhee said. “And they’ll send others outside to catch us when we come out of the pool. Run, but remember the traps!”
And the spiders, she thought. And the crabs. I hope the bears are dead.
They were. The spiders, all real now that the mage was dead, were alive. These were driven back by the torches the two had paused to light, and the
y got to the skin-boat. They pushed this out and began paddling with desperation. The craft went through the first arch and then through the second. To their right now were some ledges on which were masses of pale-white things with stalked eyes and clacking pincers. The crabs. The two directed their boat away from these, but the writhing masses suddenly became individual figures leaping outward and splashing into the dark water. Very quickly, the ledges were bare. There was no sign of the monsters, but the two knew that these were swimming toward them.
They paddled even faster, though it had not seemed possible until then. And then the prow of the boat bumped into the wall.
“Swim for it!” Smhee bellowed, his voice rebounding from the far walls and high ceilings of the cave.
Masha feared entering the water; she expected to be seized by those huge claws. But she went over, the boat tipping, and dived.
Something did touch her leg as she went under the stone downcropping. Then her head was above the surface of the pool and Smhee’s was beside her.
They scrambled out onto the hard stone. Behind them came the clacking, but none of the crabs tried to leave the pool.
The sky was black; thunder bellowed in the north; lightning traced white veins. A wind blew, chilling them in their wet clothes.
They ran toward the dugout but not in a straight line since they had to avoid the bushes with the poisonous thorns. Before they reached it, rain fell. They dragged the craft into the river and got aboard. Above them lightning cracked across the sky. Another bolt struck shortly thereafter, revealing two bears and a number of men behind them.
“They can’t catch us now!” Smhee yelled. “But they’ll be going back to put their horses on rafts. They’ll go all the way into Sanctuary itself to get us!”
Save your breath, Masha thought. I know all that.
The wind-struck river was rough now, but they got through the waves to the opposite shore. They climbed panting up the ridge and found their horses, whinnying from fear of the lightning. When they got to the bottom of the ridge, they sped away, their passage fitfully lit by the dreadful whiteness that seemed to smash all around them. They kept their horses at a gallop for a mile, then ceased them up.