H Warner Munn Merlins Godson

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us bide in patience and learn what more we may.
7
The Hole
Caranche, King of Nor-um-Bega, came back to his city before evening of the second day of their
incarceration, but when the prisoners were brought before him darkness had fallen, owing to the
mountainous wall of water between them and the low sun.
Flaming cressets lit the throne room and one glance told the young Aztianian that here was a man not
likely to be deceived by any naive claims of Nunganey concerning his own and Corenice s divinity. He
motioned furtively to the Abenaki, in the almost universal sign language common to all nations of polyglot
Alata, that he was to keep silent. Nunganey nodded in answer. But the mischief had already been done.
Caranche was a very ox of a man, bull throated, mightily muscled, his arms and legs furred with red
bristles. His mop of carroty hair fell over his fierce restless eyes into his tangled beard.
He sprawled in his seat, peering morosely through his unkempt locks at the strangers, occasionally lifting
a hamlike hand to suck a small bleeding wound on his wrist. Gwalchmai saw several in the throne room
who wore bandages or moved carefully. He guessed that Caranche s punitive expedition against the
foresters had not had everything its own way.
Either the smart or the manner in which the king had received the scratch irked him, making his mood
more ugly than usual. The surrounding men-at-arms gave him fearful respect and the three surmised that
this man was, like his subjects, of an invariably quick temper and vicious whims.
Baraldabay, their sponsor, went up and whispered something to him which they could not catch.
Caranche at once favored Gwalchmai with an intent and interested gaze, centering on the flame-gun at his
belt. He motioned Gwalchmai to advance, peremptorily beckoning with a pudgy finger glittering with
jewels, and coming to the point without preamble.
My Tower Man tells me what I can see for myself, he rumbled, hi Abenaki. You have a weapon of
the Old Ones who built this city. Where did you get it?
Gwalchmai stammered, trying to think of an answer which would not disclose the true identity of
Corenice.
Never mind! Let me have it! the king interrupted, holding out his hand.
Gwalchmai shot a look of indecision at the girl. She nodded imperceptibly and he unwillingly gave up the
weapon.
Caranche fingered it inexpertly, turning it over and over, while they hoped fervently that he might manage
to blow his head off with it. Scarcely lifting his eyes from it, he grunted to an attendant:
Bring in those field slaves!
A group of crippled and bleeding red men were herded in and lined up against the farther wall. None had
their wounds attended and some were in a dying condition, being supported by their companions.
Obviously these were unfortunates who had been handled with malicious and unnecessary violence, by
men who loved the sight of suffering. Nunganey s relieved sigh told the others that his friend was not
among them.
The king looked hard at Gwalchmai.
We have a storeroom filled to the top with these things and not one of them will work. If this one does
what our legends say it should, I will make you chief armorer and commander of a hundred!
He raised it, took aim and pulled the trigger. The echo of the long and continued discharge filled the
broad hall with thunder as charred heaps, which had once been men, fell to the floor half buried under
cascades of masonry torn from the wall behind them. Heedless of the destruction he was causing,
Caranche swung the besom of flame back down the long line. He had not quite finished when the light
waned rapidly, running down the spectrum from brilliant blue-white to dark cherry-red, then went
completely black like a cooling ember.
Caranche was furious and swung upon the three.
Did you do that? How can I recharge it?
Go to Mictlampa and find out, you blood-soaked murderer!
Gwalchmai snatched for his sword, while the Abenaki and the girl from Atlantis pressed closer to him in
silent approbation. His action was not quick enough. He and Nunganey fell buried beneath a dozen
guardsmen and were overpowered at once. They were carried off, weaponless, though Corenice, who
oddly enough had not used her miraculous strength, was led peaceably in another direction, smiling
secretly at them to be unafraid.
Caranche shouted after them, beside himself with fury:
Give them a sight of the Hole! Take them down with the relief lot, but bring them back to the pits until
morning. They can decide then to tell me or to die!
The two men were hurried out to the street, where they joined a line of perhaps forty men with only
minor wounds, and were linked to them by a long chain. Then, under close guard, they passed out of the
city through a gate in the wall and were marched across the open fields beyond. After about a mile of
traveling they came to a place where heaps of jagged rock encumbered the ground, in mounds higher
than houses.
Far as eye could see in the dusk, these mounds stretched away to left and right, refuse heaps from some
industry fit for Titans.
Torches were lit at this point and they pressed forward under the flickering light. They followed a well
traveled road and after a half-hour of steady marching among the mounts they came to an unencumbered
field. Here stood a high tower of metal with a guiding wheel at its top over which a cable ran, and slaves
there were chained to a winch, waiting their coming.
Without delay ten men were separated and led upon a platform which sank into the ground and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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