Lost Lands of Witch World (72 page)

So relaxed, I sensed that other feeling in this place. The air was not as sultry as it had been outside, but it was still unpleasant to breathe, and now it carried odors which I could not identify, but which made me sneeze and cough.

At lengthy intervals along the wall were other patches of light; but so dim were they that the spaces between them were pockets of dark. We were midway in the second of those when I realized we had found this side burrow just in time. For there was a mighty roaring from behind and the walls and floor quivered. One of the carriers must have entered the tunnel. There were blasts of air so fume-filled that we strangled in our coughing fight for breathable air. Tears streamed from our eyes until I was blinded, I only staggered along instinctively, still pulling at my companion, trying to escape that pollution.

When we reached the haven of the next light I leaned against the wall, trying to wipe my eyes, regain my breath. And so I saw that the footing under our boots was drifted with a feathery deposit, as soft as the ashes of the outer world, but black. Along the way we had come we had left a well-marked trail. But ahead there were only untroubled drifts. By such signs no one had passed this way for some time—perhaps for years. And that thought was heartening, but it did not bring us any closer to what we must have to sustain us.

The narrow passage ended in a round space which seemed like the bottom of a well. I could put my head far back on my shoulders and look up and up into eye straining distance, as if this well space extended from here to the far-off crown of the tower. There were openings along it at intervals, as if it bisected various floors. Some of these were dim of light, others shown brilliantly. There was no ladder, though, no sign of any steps which would lead to even the lowest of these openings. We had no choice, I decided, but to retreat to the dangerous tunnel and try along it for a second possible escape route.

Ayllia stepped forward suddenly, jerking me with her. I threw out my hand to retain my balance, my palm slapping hard against the wall.

There was an answer to that unplanned action. We were no longer standing on our two feet at the bottom; instead we were rising, our bodies soaring as if we had sprouted wings. I think I cried out. I know my hand went to the wand at my
belt. Then I clawed at the smooth side of the space through which we rose, striving to win some hold to stop our going. My nails scraped and broke, but they did not even slow that ascent.

We floated past the first opening, which must mark the level immediately above the one we had entered. This was one of the dimmer lighted and I saw there was space on either side, as if this hole bisected a passage somewhat wider than the entrance into this trap.

I began to move my feet, kick out a little, and so I discovered that I could so push myself toward the side of the well. I must now make an effort at the next level to pull out, taking Ayllia with me. And to that I bent all my energies. We finally won free of the well, somehow pulling into another passage on the opposite side from where we had entered.

This was much better lighted and there was sound—or was it vibration, which seemed to come, not from any one direction, but from the floor on which we lay, or out of the walls about us. There was still a spongy coating on the floor, but no longer any drifts of sooty ash. We could have come into a portion which was in use. And that must make us more wary in our going.

I was conscious that Ayllia was sitting up, staring from me to the walls about us, then back to me again. That fixed look which had masked her for so long was gone and she shivered, her hands going to cover her eyes.

“The Paths of Balemat,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Not so!” I put out my hand, not to lead her this time, but rather to give her what comfort might lie in human touch. “We live; we are not dead.” For she had spoken then of their primitive belief in an evil spirit who waited beyond the final curtain for those whose rites were not properly carried out.

“I remember—” She still did not take away the fingers she used to blind herself. “But this is surely Balemat's land and we walk in his house. No place else could be so.”

I could almost agree with her. But I had one argument which I thought would persuade her she had not joined the dead.

“Do you not hunger, thirst? Would the dead do so?”

She dropped her hands. Her expression was one of sullen hopelessness.

“Who can say? Who has ever returned to say this is this, that is that, behind the curtain? If not the House of Balemat, then where are we, witch woman?”

“In another world sure enough, but not that of the dead. We found an adept's gate and were drawn through it into one of the other worlds—”

She shook her head. “I know nothing of your magic, witch woman, save that it has ill served me and mine. And would seem to continue to do so. But it is true that I hunger and thirst. And if there is food or drink to be discovered I would like to find it.”

“As would I. But we must go with care. I do not know who or what lives here.
I only know it is a place of much strangeness and so must be scouted as we would a raiders' camp.”

I opened my pack and brought out the remains of the food I had carried and we managed to choke some mouthfuls of it until our thirst proved too strong for us to swallow more. That little meal did give us a lift of energy.

As we went on we discovered that this hall was broken by the outlines of what must be doors. But all were without latches or ways of opening them. And though I was finally emboldened to push at one or two, they did not yield to pressure. So we finally came to the end of that way, which was a balcony open on the night. From it swung one of the skyways connecting the tower with the next farther in toward the heart of the city. And, looking at that narrow footway, which seemed to be the most fragile of paths, I knew I could not cross it. Ayllia covered her eyes and pushed back into the corridor.

“I can not!” she cried.

“Nor can I.” But what else could we do? Trust again to the well and its upward pull to waft us to yet another corridor aloft where we might fare no better?

I asked her then what she remembered of our coming this far. And she replied with most of it, but said that it was all to her as a dream of which she was a spectator, not a part—save that earlier she had been moving by a drawing which ceased when we came to the road.

We started back toward the well, having no hope but to trust to it again. But before we reached that end of the hall there was a small snap of sound which sent us both into what very poor cover this way offered, flattening ourselves against the wall, standing very still.

One of those doors which had been so tightly shut opened and a figure stepped out. Stepped? No, it did not step; it rolled, or rather hovered above the floor even as the carrier had on the road. And that figure—

I have seen many mutants and monsters. Escore is plentifully inhabited by creatures who are the end results of long ago experimentation by the adepts. There are the Krogen, who are water men, born to live within that liquid at ease, and there are the Flannan, who have wings, the Gray Ones, who are an evil mixture of beast and man, and many others. But this—this was somehow worse than anything I had seen or heard described.

It was as if one had begun to make a machine which was also a man, metal and flesh grafted together. The lower half was an oval of metal, having no legs, though folded up against that ovoid shape were jointed appendages which ended in claws, now closed together as one might close fingers into a fist.

There were similar limbs on the narrower upper section of the body, but above that was a human, or seemingly human, head, though there was no hair, only a metal capping ending in a point. And behind that ball-with-a-head came another mixture of man-machine, though this one walked on two legs, and had human
arms. But the chest and the body were all metal, and the head again ended in a metal point.

Neither of the things looked in our direction, but one floated, one walked, toward the well; there they simply stepped or rolled out into the empty space and were borne upward, past the roof of this level and out of our sight.

N
O!” Ayllia's denial of what she saw did not rise above a whisper. But she stood with some of the old blankness back in her eyes.

Meanwhile, I wondered how the magic force of that well might be reversed, talking us down the shaft and not up. After seeing what must inhabit the reaches of this tower city I had no desire to explore it further. And my hopes for finding supplies were already gone. Those things which were such an unholy mixture of flesh and metal could certainly not eat nor drink, nor furnish us with provisions even if we managed to find a storeroom in this maze.

I tried now to remember what had begun our float upward. My hand had fallen on the wall and now, as I tried to recall that memory more distinctly, I thought I had seen a plate of differently colored metal set there. My hand had scraped down it—but we had risen
up!
Could it be a uniform signal?

If so, could I find a plate somewhere which would reverse our course and send us safely down? We could only try. To remain where we were, I believed now, was only waiting to be discovered, and my whole being shrank from the thought of any close contact with those half and half things. It was just by the vast favor of fortune they had not looked in our direction.

“Come on—” I reached for Ayllia's arm in the old way.

She tried to elude me. “No!”

“Stay here,” I told her grimly, “and they will find you.”

“Go there”—she pointed to the shaft—“and they surely will!”

“Not so.” Though I could not be sure of that. Hurriedly I explained what I thought had brought us up the shaft and the chance we might reverse the process.

“And if we cannot?”

“Then we shall have to try our fortune across the bridge.” But that to me was almost as great an ordeal as facing one of the half-monsters of this place. And the only bridge we had access to led deeper into the city, not out of it.

I think that Ayllia liked that no better than I did, for she started on toward the shaft without further urging. But we went slowly, listening at each door marking, testing it with our hands before scuttling to the next, fearing each might open and we would have to face some inhabitant. When we reached the last opening, through which the two had come, we found the crack more pronounced. Under my fingers the barrier moved a little.

That hum which had been a part of the walls was louder and I saw, through a very narrow slit which was all I dared to open, sections of metal wrought into incomprehensible objects. But I did not linger for more than one hurried glimpse.

We reached the side of the shaft and I looked right and left. It was hard to detect the control plate, but it was there and I saw two depressions in it, one set above the other. I had passed my hand down before, now I would try up. So I did. But thereafter I lingered for a long breath or two, not quite wanting to put my guess to the test.

If we stepped out and were carried further aloft, following the grotesque metal pair, it might well be that we would be taken past any concealment straight into the hands of those who dwelt here. Then I remembered the pack. I could use that for a test. Though to part with the few supplies we had . . .

I loosed its straps and tossed it out. It reached the center of the shaft with the force of my throw and began to sink. I was right!

“In!” I ordered and stepped out, though that took some force of will, conditioned as I was to the fear of falling.

Ayllia gave a small, choked cry, but she followed me. Our descent was faster than our rise had been, though not to the point of actual falling. I worked my body until I reached the wall of the shaft where the openings were, ready to swing in, for I remembered that other dim level we had passed in our ascent. Now that I had a possible second exit I was emboldened to explore further where the lack of strong light suggested a deserted, or near deserted, level. And I said as much to Ayllia.

I think she would have refused, but she was in no mind to be left alone. We reached the level and I caught at its opening, while Ayllia, who had grasped my cloak, swung in beside me. We were perched in that opening as a Vrang might roost on a stone crag, the pack having gone past us to the bottom of the shaft—though I did not worry about that now.

We were not, I speedily discovered, in another corridor as we had been above, but rather on a narrow walk which ran out a short distance over a vast space. So dim was the light we could see little except that immediately around us, and of that I could make little sense. There were a number of large objects on the floor, each standing a little apart from its neighbor. Finally I decided that these were the carriers we had seen in swift passage on the road, though they were now at rest.

They were cylinders, perhaps twice the height of a tall man, and each was pointed into cone shape. I could see the marks of openings along their sides. But, as with the doors in the upper corridor, these were tightly shut, save for one in the nearest.

And that had not been easily opened. There were stains and sears and the metal was torn and rent, sticking out in points. It plainly had been forced and heat had been used in that forcing. Now, looking further, I could just perceive a similar tear
was in the next cylinder. Though why the inhabitants of the city needed to break open their own containers, if that was what these were, was a puzzle.

Were they storehouses? Or were they used to transport supplies to the city as the wains from the manors of Estcarp crawled at harvest time to Es? If so there might be food in them. I told Ayllia that.

“Water?” she asked hoarsely, “water?”

Though I could not believe any water supply was so housed, I was tempted to explore in that faint hope. We had to have water and soon, or we would not have enough strength to leave the city.