Part 35 (2/2)

She sagged silently to the floor. She still saw and heard and felt, but she could no longer move or speak. The guard scrambled over her body, going for Breanna. The girl might maneuver to take him out, but it was less than an even bet. Then two of the four rescuers would be down, with only two guards out. Disaster.

In the time it took the guard to scramble over Cynthia's body, Breanna turned around, as if to flee. But it was unlikely she could outrun the guard; she would merely be presenting her backside to him for easy nullification. Also, there might be another guard farther down the rampart, so that escape afoot was by no means certain anyway. She could not fly away; the guards had had the wit to take out the flying person first. Better to face him and fight, hoping for a lucky score.

The guard landed on the floor. He advanced on the girl, who seemed so small and helpless before him. She wasn't even trying to flee; she just faced away from him. The guard reached out.

Breanna hoisted her skirt, revealing her black panties. The guard froze in place, freaked out. The girl reached carefully back with one foot and touched him on the belly. He sagged to the floor, nulled. Only then did she let her skirt fall back into place.

She turned to face Cynthia. ”I'm sorry, horseface,” she said sadly. ”But at least we took three of them out for one of us. I guess I have to leave you here, until the game is done. You did well.” She made a salute, and ran off along the rampart, soon disappearing.

Cynthia was left to her own devices. This promised to be a really dull wait until the end of the game. But then Saturn spoke in her mind. ”I find your tiny mortal culture interesting. If the mere appearance of your front or a girl's rear causes males to become inanimate, how do you ever manage to have social interaction?”

”Well, you have to understand that there are cultural distinctions,” Cynthia replied. ”Centaur males don't react the same way, and the rears of girls are normally covered.”

Their dialogue continued, and in due course moved into Saturn's special Demon power of Dimension, the measurement of the universe. Without dimension of s.p.a.ce or time, nothing could exist. The other Demons mostly represented forces, but only Dimension could quantify or clarify those forces. Therefore Saturn's power of measurement was probably the essential key to existence itself. ”Did you know that the universe's dimensions are constantly changing?” Saturn inquired. ”It is expanding enormously.” Cynthia had not known that, and was fascinated. They had nothing to do but educate each other, and Cynthia found herself learning more about the ways of Dimension than she had ever dreamed existed. It was a fact that Saturn had the most appealing dimensions in the System. Apparently Saturn was similarly satisfied with what she learned of the tiny odd nuances of mortal males and females. The time pa.s.sed surprisingly rapidly and interestingly; time was, after all, a dimension. In fact, it was a joyful occasion.

Sim Bird watched the girls fly up to the high castle rampart. ”They will be ambushed,” Jupiter said fearfully.

”They can handle themselves,” Sim silently squawked in response. ”They have formidable powers of distraction.” He was privately amazed that a Demon as clearly mighty as Jupiter should be so timid.

”It is not my normal state,” Jupiter replied. ”My power is the Strong Force, which binds atoms together. Without it, matter could not exist. I fear nothing; I am the binding force that prevents the universe from dissolving into pure radiation. But the Swell Foop drew on my concern for the outcome of this game and gave me Fear. It is not a pleasant experience.”

”Of course it isn't,” Sim squawked quickly. ”It is a crippling liability which we must conceal from the enemy. Meanwhile, please tell me more about the Strong Force.” He did this partly to distract the Demon from his a.s.signed fear, but he was also most interested in the subject.

Jupiter was glad to oblige. And while he was distracted by his own comprehensive discussion, Sim nodded to Che Centaur and quietly took off, flying close to the castle wall so that he could not been seen by the guards above. Che, in contrast, flew well clear of the castle, where he could see and be seen.

Sim flew back and forth, climbing up against the wall. When he was near the top, Che waved, signaling that the way was clear. The girls had taken out the guards.

He stroked more strongly, lifting rapidly over the parapet. There were Cynthia and three guards, fallen in place, evidently nulled. That meant that only seven guards remained, as the enemy could not afford to have them all concentrated at the top. But their group had suffered its first casualty. Poor Cynthia!

He landed on the rampart, then hunched down and ran by foot along it toward the high turret. He encountered stairs and scrambled up them, still keeping his head low. Landbound creatures tended to think that birds always flew, and were clumsy on their feet; this was not the case. The air was just normally a superior route.

He entered the turret. There was no guard; the girls had evidently lured him out and nulled him. There were the keys: five of them on a ring. One for each player. He picked up the ring with his beak and left the turret.

Back on the rampart, he lifted a wing to signal Che: It was clear to come in. Che flew toward him, but also kept looking around the castle to be sure no more guards were lurking in ambush. He landed, his body taking up the width of the rampart. Sim lifted the ring of keys, and Che took it, detached one, and gave the ring back.

They moved on along the rampart, looking for Breanna. In a moment she appeared, silently signaling them. She had been hiding in a crevice. She came to take a key and touch hands and wings. In that manner she and Venus acquainted them with the result of their survey: no other guards atop the castle.

Now came the next stage of the challenge: to go down into the depths of the castle, avoiding guards, locate Justin/Earth, and lead him out. This would not be easy.

The three unlocked the door to the main castle. They knew the seven guards remaining could be anywhere, so they had to go carefully. They touched wings and hands briefly: Should they go together, or split, so as to search more rapidly? They decided to split, but to meet again in an hour in the castle's main room, if feasible. They would avoid guards, because any guards they nulled would be an indication of their recent presence. Only if they had no choice would they null a guard.

They came to a divide, and split. Breanna touched his wing a moment: ”Don't get lost, Birdbrain!” she thought affectionately.

”Don't flash your black bottom at anyone,” he thought/squawked in response.

He followed his section of the pa.s.sage to its end, keeping his sharp avian senses alert. He did not have to be much concerned about getting ambushed, because he could hear or smell a foreign presence from a reasonable distance. Since the pa.s.sage was lit by flaring torches every few feet, he could see well enough too.

What he couldn't do was fly. There was not enough room. That bothered him. But his feet would suffice for this.

”You are bold,” Jupiter said in his mind. ”So am I, when not under the spell of a magic emotion.”

”It is unfortunate,” Sim agreed noncommittally. He had been almost awed at the notion of a.s.sociating with a Demon, but that was fading into complacency with experience.

”I was contemptuous of a.s.sociating with a mere mortal,” Jupiter said. ”But that too is fading with experience. You folk are indeed able to function on your restricted level. There is also considerable novelty in experiencing emotion, even this negative one. I am able to feel some of your other emotions too, when they arise.”

On either side of the pa.s.sage were doors. Sim considered using his key to unlock and open them, but feared that any such action could alert a guard or the mistress of the castle. So he listened, and peeked through each keyhole, and concluded that the chambers were empty. Had Justin Tree been in any, Sim should have been able to hear his breathing. And why would a guard be locked in an otherwise empty chamber?

The pa.s.sage terminated in a stairway going down. There was a wire mesh door across it, and that door was locked. So he would have to use his key after all.

He hooked the key on the claw of a toe, lifted his foot, and put the key in the lock. He turned, and the door opened. He pa.s.sed into the stairway, then turned and locked the door behind him. As far as he knew, there was no magic here to ascertain the pa.s.sage of a person, so any guard that came would a.s.sume that no one had pa.s.sed.

”You are cunning,” Jupiter said with a tinge of admiration.

Sim was getting to like this Demon, or at least the one percent he knew of him. ”I hope it suffices.”

The stair wound down to another story. Sim considered unlocking its screen door and checking its chambers, but it occurred to him that Che or Breanna would be doing that from another direction. The prisoner was more likely to be hidden in the very deepest dungeon, the hardest place to locate and rescue him. Better to find him quickly, then coordinate with the others to get him out. For it surely would not be as simple as merely leading him back the way Sim had come. The absence of further guards was becoming suspicious.

”I agree,” Jupiter said. ”There must be a trap.”

”If there is, the prisoner is surely the bait.”

He continued on down the stairway. It pa.s.sed floor after floor. The castle was huge!

At last it ended on a dank floor. Mold grew on the stones here, and the torches guttered as if not getting quite enough air. This had to be the bottom level.

He unlocked the gate and walked onto the floor. There was still no sound from any of the chambers along it. ”So many empty rooms,” Jupiter said. ”What is the use of them?”

That was a good question. Sim unlocked a door and opened it. He peered inside. It was completely dark, so he fetched a torch, hopping on one foot while carrying it with the other. He lighted the chamber.

It contained a human skeleton in shackles. ”Fornax would not kill him,” Jupiter said. ”That would abort the game.”

”True. It is a prop in a setting, to make the castle seem authentic.”

Sim retreated from the chamber, returned the torch to its holder, locked the chamber door, and went on.

At the end of the pa.s.sage he found another locked door. He opened it and discovered a large empty dungeon. But there was the barest trace of something. A faint scent. As of-shoes.

It was too dark for his eyes to be useful. He fetched a torch and found a holder for it within the dungeon. Now he saw the extent of the chamber; it was large enough to hold a number of prisoners in comfort, if that was not an oxymoron. But it was bereft of any captives, even bones.

Except for a pair of shoes near the center. Justin's shoes. Sim recognized them by sight and smell.

But where was Justin himself? The dungeon had no exit except the single locked door. How could Justin have escaped it, without a key, leaving his shoes behind?

”I fear treachery,” Jupiter said. ”This has the aspect of a trap.”

The Demon was paranoid, because of his a.s.signed emotion, but he might be correct. There was definitely something weird about this. ”How so?” he asked.

<script>