Children of the Gates (31 page)

“Philbur!” He made of the name of his house a battle cry. It was as if he met red hate with a rage as great and overpowering.

Without clear thought Elossa’s hand grabbed her mirror from its hiding place, the swift jerk of her pull breaking the cord which held it. Then, swinging it by what was left of that cord, she spun it through the air.

Was what happened then chance alone or some intervention of power she did not realize she could call upon? A beam of searing red fire had shot from the pointed finder of he who wore Atturn’s face. It struck full on the disc of the mirror and was reflected back—its force of beam increased. The black and red figure vanished.

15

“Who was that?” Elossa found words first, Stans was still staring bemused at where that stranger had stood.

“It was—no!” He flung up one hand in an emphatic gesture of denial. “It could not be that!” Now he turned his head a little to look at the girl and his look of astonishment was still plain. “Time does not stop—a man dead these half thousand years cannot walk!”

“Walk.” She gazed at the mirror which had so providently, almost impossibly, deflected whatever it was the stranger would have hurled at Stans. The disc was cracked, darkened. A vigorous rubbing against her cloak did not free it from that discoloration. Without even trying it she could be sure it was now useless for her purposes. “Walk,” she repeated explosively, “that strove to kill!” For Elossa did not doubt in the least that had that beam of light struck Stans he would have been as dead as she would have been had the Yurth weapon in the corridor cooked her flesh from her charred bones.

“It was Karn of the House of Philbur—he who ruled in Kal-Hath-Tan. He is—was—of my blood, or I of his. But he died with the city! It is so—all men know it! Yet, you saw him, did you not? Tell me—” His voice was near a fierce shout—“you did see him!”

“I saw a man—a Raski if you say he is so—in black and red, but he wore the face of the Mouth of Atturn and you said you did not know it.” Stans rubbed his hand across his forehead. He was visibly more shaken than she had yet seen him.

“I know—what do I know—or not know?” He cried that question, not to her, she knew, but to the world around them. “I am no longer sure of anything.”

Then he took a leap in her direction, and, before the girl could move, he had seized her shoulders in a hurtful grip and was shaking her as if he would so reduce her to a kind of slavery.

“Was this of your doing, Yurth? All know you can tangle and play with minds, as a true man can toss pebbles to his liking. Have you so tossed my thoughts, bewitched my eyes—made me see what is not?”

The girl fought him, tearing herself free by the very fury of her resistance. Then she backed away, holding up to him at eye level the blackened and near destroyed mirror of seeing.

“He did that—with the beam that he threw! Think you, Raski, how would you have been served had this not deflected that power!”

Stans’ scowl did not lighten but his eyes did flicker at the disc.

“I do not know what he would have done,” he said sullenly. “This is an evil land and—”

He got no further. They came boiling out of the rocks across the water, splashing through, some of them covering the distance between with huge leaps. Not Yurth, not Raski. . . . Elossa gave a cry of horror, so alien were these creatures to any normal life that she knew.

Twisted bodies, limbs too long or too short, heads with horribly misshapen features—a nightmare of distorted things which vaguely aped the human yet were totally monstrous. It was this alien horror which kept both Elossa and Stans from instant defense. Also the creatures attacked without a sound, surging on in a wave over the water toward them.

Elossa stopped to catch up her staff; Stans still had his hunting knife to hand. But they had no chance. Evil smelling bodies ringed them in, hands which had four fingers, six, boneless tentacles for digits, seized upon them, dragged them down. The terrible revulsion which filled Elossa as she looked upon their distorted and deformed bodies and faces weakened her. She fought, but it was as if nausea weighted her limbs, deadened her powers of constructive thought.

They poured over the two by the fire like an irresistible wave, bearing them to earth. Elossa shuddered at the touch of their unwholesome flesh against her own. The fetid odor they wore like a second skin made it hard for her to breathe, she had to fight to regain consciousness. There were bonds pulled cruelly tight about her wrists and ankles. Still one of the creatures squatted on her, using the force of its weight to keep her quiet.

And the worst of that (Elossa had to close her eyes against the horror of that leering, drooling thing) was that it was obviously female. For their attackers wore but little clothing—scraps of filthy stuff about their loins the extent of their body coverings, the females among them as aggressive and bestial as the males.

The silence in which their attack had been carried out was broken now. Grunts, whistles, noises not even as intelligent as sounds made by far more cleanly living animals broke out in an unintelligible chorus.

Elossa, the center of one circle of captors, could see nothing of the Raski. She forced herself to look at these ringing her in. While they indulged meanwhile in small torments, pulling viciously at her hair, tweaking her flesh until the nails—of those which had nails—near met, leaving raw marks which bled a little.

There appeared to be, she began to understand, some argument in progress among them. Twice one party of the creatures strove to drag her away from the river, while others jabbered and screamed and fought over her to bring her back.

She waited for the man named Karn to appear, somehow sure that he must have been the one to unleash on them this frightful band. But there was no one but the things themselves. One had thrust a stick into the fire, whirled it around in the air until the end blazed and now limped, for one of its legs was shorter than the other, toward her, the fiery point manifestly aimed at her eyes.

Before that reached the goal the would-be torturer was tackled by a much taller and heavier male, whose tentacle fingers fastened about its fellow’s thin, corded throat and dragged him back, flinging him away with callous force.

Before the jabbering creature could reclaim its stick there was a sharp outcry from those nearest the river. Now the large male waded into those about Elossa cuffing with fists, kicking out with feet on which there were no toes, growling hoarsely.

Having battered near half of her captors away, the male stooped and caught at a great handful of her hair. By this painful hold he dragged her to the water’s edge. Then, seizing her by the middle of her body, he raised and flung her out.

She did not land in the water, but rather in some kind of a boat which rocked perilously under her weight, but did not turn over. A moment later Stans landed half on top of her, hurled in the same manner.

The Raski lay so limp Elossa feared he was dead. His weight across her body forced her into the bottom of the boat where there was a wash of slimy water. She had to struggle to lift her head so that would not lap into her face.

Under them the boat lurched and then floated free. But none of the horrors on the shore made move to join the prisoners in it. They were being sent alone, bound and helpless, into the full force of the current. Elossa’s struggles made the boat rock dangerously. But she had achieved a few inches of room which did just keep her face above the water.

Caught in what was indeed a swift current, the boat rode dizzily, sometime spinning half around. Much of Elossa’s range of sight was curtailed by Stans’ body. She could really see only straight up where the sky held a thin, promising sunlight. But, as they were borne along, walls began to rise on either side, those same walls closing in toward the river. They cut off much of the sky. All she could soon see was a strip forming a ribbon between two towering stretches of dark rock.

The sound of rushing water was ever present. Now and then the boat grated against some obstruction beyond Elossa’s curtailed range of sight and she waited tensely for their craft to rip apart on a sunken stone, or be over turned, allowing them to drown. Meanwhile she struggled against the cords about her wrists. Those were well under the water which washed in the boat and she wondered if the continued immersion might loosen the ties. But she was afraid to fight too hard lest her movements endanger the buoyancy of their clumsy craft.

A groan from Stans heartened her a little. Perhaps if he could regain consciousness they might have a slightly better chance. Then she saw the seeping of blood from his shoulder. That nearly healed wound which he had carried from his brush with the first sargon must have been wrenched open once again.

“Stans!” She called his name.

A second groan answered her. Then a muttering which was near lost in the sound of the water. Imagination was busy nibbling at the grip she held tight upon her emotions. Given the swiftness of the current here what might well lie ahead? Rapids which no such leaky craft as this could hope to ride, or even a waiting cataract or falls?

“Stans!” Perhaps she was wrong in trying to arouse the Raski—what if he should make some sudden move which would overbalance them?

But the water was washing higher now. It flicked in small waves against her chin. If he did not shift his weight In some manner she would be past the ability to keep her face above its surface much longer.

His body did move a fraction and the boat dipped. The water swirled up and she choked as it entered her nose without warning.

“Be—be quiet!” Her voice arose nearly to a shriek in her fear.

“Where. . . .” His voice was weak, she thought, but it sounded as if he were conscious.

“We are in a boat.” She tried to outtalk the river sounds. “I am partly beneath you. There is water here. I must keep my face above it.”

Had he understood? He made no immediate answer. She tried to wriggle away from him to the bow of the boat, hold her head up. Her neck ached and it was becoming more and more difficult to do that.

Then his words came clearly enough. “I shall try to move away,” he said. “Be ready!”

She braced herself, took a deep breath to have her lungs full if she were to be ducked. His weight did move, slid a little down her body toward the stern of the boat. That rocked wildly under them, and the waves she feared did wash over her face. But through some favor of providence the craft did not overset.

Once more he moved. And then she felt free. Now it was her turn.

“Be ready,” she warned. “I shall try to edge away, get my shoulders higher.”

After a fashion she did. Her chin was jammed down into her chest, but the water was now well away from her face. Also she could see that he, in turn, was wedged across the boat in part, his head and shoulders against one side, his legs and knees trailing down the other.

The current was still fast but the boat seemed to ride it a little more steadily. Elossa knew very little of boats; they were never used by the Yurth. Perhaps their changes of position had something to do with the alteration.

From her present place she could see that the river must fill a very narrow gap between two very steep banks. It was as if they passed so through a mountain canyon. Even if they were free, and managed somehow to get out of the water, she greatly doubted that there was any way either of those natural walls could be climbed.

Once more she cautiously tried the ties about her wrists. And, to her overwhelming excitement, they gave a little. The water’s soaking must have helped. She passed her discovery to Stans. He nodded, but it did not seem to interest him. Under the darkness of his skin there was a greenish color. His eyes closed as if it was beyond his strength to keep them open, and he lay inert. It might have taken all the energy he could summon to have made the move which freed her.

But her own determination and will were growing stronger. The extreme effect of those horrible attackers had faded. Alone, bound and helpless though they seemed to be, she could begin to search for some hope. To get her hands free—that was what she must first do.

In spite of the pain in her wrists, she flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed, tugging at intervals, though that repaid her with torment in her flayed skin.

Stans continued to lie with closed eyes and the girl believed that he had again lapsed into unconsciousness. She wondered how long their voyage down the river would continue. She was able to force her head up another few inches to see that once more the walls of the cut through which they were traveling were beginning to descend—the cliffs were not so tall and forbidding.

A last effort and she jerked one hand free. Her puffed fingers had no feeling in them. Then the agony of returning circulation made her want to scream aloud. She forced herself to flex those swollen and blood-stained hands in spite of the pain. But she could also use them to cautiously lever herself up farther in the boat, release her head and neck from the strain put upon them.

Though it was hard to make her fingers obey to any success she picked at the ties around her ankles. The thongs had cut deeply there and puffed rings showed bloody. Then she remembered that the creatures who had taken them captive had not searched her. And, using both hands together, she hunted within the bosom of her robe for that concealed pocket where she carried the small knife to serve her at meals.

It nearly fell through her nerveless fingers, but she managed to saw away at the thongs. As soon as those parted she edged warily around to see what she could do for Stans. Sitting up in the boat she had a better view of the river. Here it was much narrower than it had been in the valley, which might well add to the speed of the current.

The boat itself was blunt bowed, rising high on the sides. It appeared to be made of a wooden frame over which was tight stretched hide so thick it must come from some beast beyond Yurth knowledge. That was also scaled on the outside as she could see where it had been brought over at the edge and laced down. And she did not doubt that it was perhaps far tougher than any wood.

There was a feeling of age about it, as if not of her time at all. And she marveled at how buoyantly it rode.

Using both hands she shifted Stans a little, with a catch of breath as the boat dipped ominously. But at least she was able to saw at the cords near buried in the flesh of his wrists where they had been drawn so cruelly tight.

His ankles had fared better than hers for he wore the boots of a hunter. And there was more give to the bonds there. Once he was free she settled him as best she could to steady the boat. The blood stains from his shoulder had not spread, she could hope that the wound had stopped bleeding.

Now—without any oar, paddle, or means of controlling their craft—what could be done to better their present state? Elossa drew a deep breath as she turned her attention back to the river.