Part 35 (1/2)

He rose and began to pace the floor. ”You're right. Let me think. There is an entrance to the corridors housing the pits of Jaltor's palace, an entrance supposedly secret, which Jotan himself once pointed out to me.”

He wheeled suddenly and entered his sleeping quarters, returning a moment later with a flint knife in a sheath at his belt and there was the light of battle in his eyes.

”Return to your room, Alurna,” he said grimly. ”I will go to free Jotan and his men.”

She shook her head. ”This was my idea and I'm going with you.”

”But--but this is dangerous! If I am caught I shall be thrown in the pits myself--perhaps killed. This is no venture for a woman!”

”It is a venture for _this_ woman,” she replied doggedly. ”Jotan is to be my mate ... even though he may not realize that yet. He must find me beside you when we rescue him.”

For a long moment they stared into each other's eyes--then Tamar's shoulder rose and fell in surrender.

”As you wish,” he said.

Sitab, warrior of the palace of Jaltor, moved stealthily down a steep ramp. About him was darkness more intense than that of a tomb, forcing him to feel his way with infinite slowness lest a misstep make a noise loud enough to rouse one or more of the guards in the arms-rooms here and there among the subterranean corridors.

From one of his hands trailed a heavy spear; in the other was a keen-edged knife of flint ready for the first man who should find him where Sitab had no right to be.

For whoever he came across now must die. It would not do for word to reach Jaltor on the morrow that Sitab, a trusted guard, had been seen on his way to the pits.

A miasmic odor of damp decay seemed to increase in strength the further below the earth's surface he progressed. Now and then a water rat would rustle across his path, its pa.s.sage marked only by the rasp of claws on rock. Damp stretches of slippery surface proved difficult to negotiate and on several occasions he saved himself from falling only by a quick movement of his feet. Now and then he would step into ankle-deep pools of chill water, bringing an involuntary gasp to his lips.

At long last his feet found no ramp where one should have been and he realized he now stood at the beginning of the deepest corridor beneath the palace. For a long moment he stood there, his ears straining to catch some sound of life. As from a great distance he caught the m.u.f.fled snores of sleeping men, the faint murmurings of troubled words from a mind dreaming of the horrors to which it awakened after each sleep.

Grasping his spear tighter, Sitab inched his way cautiously along the corridor until his ears told him he was standing between twin rows of cells. From the belt of his robe he drew a small length of tinder-like wood and from a pouch in the same belt came a small ball-like bit of stone, its interior hollowed to hold a supply of moss in the center of which glowed a single coal of fire. Drawing the perforated bit of wood serving as a cork, Sitab let the bit of fire roll out onto the miniature torch. It rested there, glowing redly as he breathed against it. When a minute of this had gone by a tiny tongue of fire rose to life and within seconds the torch was fully lighted, dispelling the ink-like gloom about him.

On silent feet Sitab moved from door to door of the cells. At each barred opening he let the rays of light seep into the tiny interior of the room beyond while his eyes sought to identify the sleeping men.

Some he saw were hardly recognizable as human, so long had they lain prisoner in this awful hole. Matted hair hung over faces so thin and emaciated as hardly to be human at all. Others he saw were still in excellent physical condition: these had been here only a little while.

But none was familiar to him until he was well down the first row. As he peered into this particular cell, he saw a man lying asleep on the bare stone platform which served this cell, as in others, as a crude bunk.

The sleeper's face was turned toward the wall, shadowed by a raised arm, so that Sitab was unable to make out the features. But something was familiar about the man's general build and the shape of his head, and for several minutes Sitab stood there waiting for the man to stir in his sleep sufficiently for his face to be seen.

When full five minutes had pa.s.sed without this taking place, Sitab broke a small piece of the rotting wood from his torch and flipped it unerringly through the barred grating of the door. It struck lightly against the bare arm of the sleeper, and he sighed heavily, stirred, then turned his face toward the light.

Sitab stiffened, waiting for the man to awake and cry out in alarm at the glare of the torch. But the eyes did not open and the prisoner lapsed back into complete slumber. Only then did Sitab see who lay sleeping there.

It was Jotan.

A slight gasp escaped the guard's lips. Jotan _here_! But Jotan was dead! Vokal himself had said as much.

Sitab smiled. No matter that Vokal had been misinformed; Jotan would be dead within seconds. Vokal would reward him well for killing both Jotan _and_ Garlud--if the latter were imprisoned here as well.

How best to kill him? Open the door, creep to the side of the sleeping man and plunge the spearhead into his heart? That would be the quietest way ... and also the most dangerous. What if Jotan were in reality awake--lying there waiting for this unknown visitor to enter the cell, then jumping upon him in a bid for freedom.