Neeka on the narrow bed, enfolded in her arms and sobbing on her breast
There was nothing whatsoever in the cell, save its furnishings and a pair of felt boots, so Neeka wrapped her own blood-sticky cloak around the girl’s abused body, gently laid her back on the bed, then tried the boots on her. They fitted perfectly. Supporting the stumbling girl, she led her out of the cell to where Iktis had removed the center of what had looked to be a solid brick hearth to disclose a trapdoor of rust-pitted iron.
The Ahrmehnee had come that far quietly enough, but when her eyes lit upon Iktis, she began to whimper again and weakly resist Neeka’s efforts to lead her forward. The closer Neeka’s efforts brought her to the impatiently waiting bravo, the louder became her wordless cries and the more violent her struggles. Finally, Iktis shook his head.
Silently, he beamed, “There’s no hope for it, child. Turn her around, I don’t want to hit her face.”
Neeka obeyed him, watching over her shoulder, but saw only a blur of movement of his hand and arm. She felt the shock of the blow through the girl’s body, heard Detis’s low grunt, then was forced to release her hold lest the cloaked body pull her down too.
The pock-faced little man shook his head once more. I’d like to leave her here, but those damned lustful guardsmen would likely take her for a whore and gang-rape her. Besides, she’s seen that trapdoor, and the fewer folk know of these ways, the better.”
Above their heads, the hanging lamps swayed and the flames danced to the regular, heavy thumps of a timber being hard-swung against the street door of the bordello. There were no other sounds; apparently the occupants had all made good their escape.
Each carrying a smoky torch, Iktis burdened as well with the unconscious girl, he and Neeka shivered in the chill of the dank, slippery passage. “Aye, it’s cold and damp enough at any season. Still I’d rather be here in fall or winter, for there’re no snakes now.”
“What is this tunnel?” queried Neeka silently to save breath. “A smugglers’ way?”
“Yes, smugglers and such often make use of some of them, child,” he answered, “but they didn’t build them. Parts of these ways, the round, dirt-floored parts, are so ancient that no one knows just who did build them. They were here when the first Ehleenee came and raised the city that stood before Esmithpolisport and were discovered by the men excavating foundations for the city walls and for houses. In those days, many tons of iron, brass, copper and lead were brought up from them, but there’s little of it left now. Only a few of those curious round iron trapdoors remain unscavenged.”
They splashed through puddles, waded through sucking mud, traversed firm, water-soaked sand and slipped on stones slick with the ooze of centuries. When Neeka remarked upon the dearth of rats or mice in such a natural habitat, Iktis mindspoke, “When my grandfather was a lad, these ways swarmed with vermin, but then the fencats were brought up from the swamps around the Great Inland Sea far southwest of here in the Associated Duchies; these days, it’s hard to find a rat in Esmithpolisport, under or over the ground, save for the trickle that come off ships.”
They had walked for miles, it seemed to Neeka, though with the numerous turns it would have been difficult for her to estimate just how much real distance they had put between them and their point of entry into the maze. Both torches were now guttering, and, at a word from Iktis, Neeka used hers to light another pair from the half-dozen spares he had had her bring along.
“Iktis,” asked Neeka, “for all her size, that girl is barely out of childhood, so why were Stoo and those others allowed to so abuse her? Wasn’t ravishment enough?”
“She’s not been ravished, Neeka—tortured, degraded, humiliated, terrified, yes, but not ravished. The old bitch paid a whopping price for her because she is a virgin, and avaricious as Djoy Skriffen was, you may be damned certain that she’d not have allowed the girl to be deflowered by a mere bodyguard. She was bought for an aging degenerate whose lusts can only be stirred by immature females. But neither he nor Djoy had figured on the strength of the girl, who not only successfully resisted his attempted rape of her but kneed him in the balls to boot. She was back down in that cell to be played with until her spirit was broken.”
Twice they had to backtrack from runnels blocked by cave-ins. At the second such, Iktis cursed sulfurously, damning all smugglers, the late madam, the Heritage and persons of whom Neeka had never heard for failing to keep the runnels in repair or at least apprising him of the locations and extents of disrepair. Then he sighed. “I’d hoped to lead you into the secret subcellar wherein the Heritage meets, but these were the last two tunnels to it; the others are long years flooded.
“The ancient, round tunnel we crossed back there passed beneath the palace of the city governor, but with poor Pehtros dead, that’s not the place I’d wish to come up, thank you. All the ways that lead to the fortress have been deliberately flooded or otherwise blocked over the years. Since I slew both Djoy Skriffen and Stoo Shif—that screaming hunchback saw it all and you can bet he told of it to the guards—the patrols are certainly out for me, and you too, likely. Djoy was no great loss to Esmithpolisport, mind you, but she was the uncrowned queen of the city’s criminal element, and, if we are unlucky enough to be arrested, you may be sure that well never live long enough to come to trial.”
“Then what can we do, Iktis? Where can we go?” asked Neeka.
“If only Lord Gahbros were in the city…” mused Iktis. “There is a way that comes under his mansion, but his wife, worse luck, is a barbarian, a Daiviz of Morguhn; she’s not a member of
ee Klirohnohmeea
, and there’s no telling which way she’d jump if a couple of fugitive murderers and a kidnapped girl suddenly came trooping out of her cellars.
“There is one more possible hidey-hole, of which I can think,” the sharp-faced man went on. “I know that you and this girl would be safe there, but I… well, the Lady Rohza dislikes men in general almost as much as she hates the barbarians. It’s a long way, too, outside the city, which will mean taking to the lowest ways, under the walls… and praying that there’s been no collapse of them in the years since I’ve been that way.”
He resumed his burden of the limp girl, crossing himself awkwardly. “Pray, too, that this poor child remains in swoon a bit longer, for we must retrace our way directly under the bordello, and they are certain to have left guards there.”
If prayers are truly effective, theirs were answered, for it was not until they were well upon the downward-slanting way that led under the inland walls that the Ahrmehnee began to moan and weakly squirm on Iktis’ shoulder. Iktis stopped and set the girl upright against the stone wall of the tunnel and Neeka tore the hem from one of her undershifts, wet it in a nearby puddle and gently bathed the child’s battered face, both she and Iktis beaming silent soothing assurance, just as they would have to a hurt, frightened animal.
This time, the sight of Iktis brought no screams from the Ahrmehnee, though still she trembled and eyed him warily. She said something that Neeka could not understand, then began to speak in Mehrikan.
“Where have you taken me now? What are you going to do to me?” In the light of the torches, tears glittered on her long, sooty lashes and down her bruised cheeks.
“We have taken you away from that place, child,” said Neeka. “We will try to find a way to return you to your home.”
“She… that huge, terrible old woman said that… that the only way I ever would leave that… that house of horror was… was
dead
,” gulped the girl.
“Djoy Skriffen is, herself, now dead,” said Neeka. “This brave man, Iktis, killed her. I saw him do it, child. He also killed one of those men who abused you… and I killed another.” Neeka had felt remorse at the death of Loo Fahlkop and was a little shocked to discover that she could feel no such emotion upon the reflection that she had slain two men this day. Her uncle, who had been a warrior and duelist of note in his youth, had often said that the first kill was the most difficult, both at the time of killing and immediately after, but that all subsequent kills were increasingly easy. Neeka thought that now she could understand.
After a few more minutes, the Ahrmehnee girl, Shireen Mahsohnyuhn, was able to walk with minimal assistance from Neeka, so the three proceeded faster than before. The way went downward, downward, ever downward, then began to slant into a very gradual ascent. They were lighting the last brace of torches when Iktis announced that they were nearing their goal.
“The city of which these ancient, subterranean ways were a part must have been a monster among cities—larger than Kehnooryos Atheenahs, Harzburk and Pitzburk combined— for the ways extend more than a mile inland and, it is said, once ran almost as far seaward. We now are over a half-mile outside the walls and might be safe aboveground, but they might also have mounted patrols out—I would, were I Pahvlos—so I think we’ll go on underground.”
In places they were compelled to bend low, almost to crawl, due to the accumulations of tree roots growing down through the rough, porous stone of the tunnel’s arched ceiling. But at last they came upon an ancient, badly rusted ladder leading up to another of those curious round iron hatches. Handing his torch to Shireen, Iktis climbed up and attempted to dislodge the cover. The two young women could hear his gasps and grunts of exertion, the cracking of his straining sinews, and finally the iron disc shifted with a grating sound that echoed down the long, dark runnel.
They emerged into a stock cellar even larger than Djoy Skriffen’s. Against one wall were ranged massive stationary wine casks larger in diameter than the tunnel below, their staves and bandings darkened with age. Elsewhere were stacked hogsheads and barrels of pickled vegetables and pickled or salted meats, stone crocks of salt or honey, stone jugs of brandy and cordials, kegs of oil and, near the stairs leading to the upper cellar, several ironbound caskets secured with huge padlocks.
It was evident that an earnest attempt had been made to conceal the round iron disc leading to the ways below, and the great difficulty in lifting it was explained by the three inches of packed earth which it had been covered with. Iktis kicked as much dirt as he could back over it, then manhandled a great tun of pickled turnips onto it.
Weaving and bobbing to avoid the apples and pears hung from the ceiling on strings, Iktis, Neeka and Shireen mounted the stairs and entered a lamp-lit upper cellar. With all its compartments included, it was larger than the one below though not so high-ceilinged. On either side of the staircase huge bins of white and sweet potatoes, and elsewhere were bins of turnips, horseradish root, onions, squashes, pumpkins and the like. Garlands of dried fruits and great bunches of garlic hung from the ceiling. Barrels of flour and meal were stacked in the center of the floor.
From behind this stack of barrels came a short, stout man, tally slate and chalk in hand. At sight of the three interlopers—all three filthy with soil and soot, their clothing damp and disheveled, the two women carrying guttering torches and the man grasping a bared hanger, its pierced brass guard crusted over with dried blood—he squeaked, dropped his slate and sprang for the stairs to the ground level—-but Iktis made it there before him.
Leaning his head to one side and regarding the pudgy man closely for a brief moment, Iktis sketched a sign in the air between them with his empty right hand. Neeka recognized the sign, and so too did the strange man. His relaxation was visible and a tentative smile creased his round face as he answered the sign with another. Stepping closer, he and Iktis exchanged a complicated hand grip, then he turned and walked back to pick up his slate and chalk while Iktis sheathed his hanger.
When Lady Rohza Ahnthroheheethees had heard out the stories of all three of her surprise “guests,” she frowned and rapped her short, square-cut nails on the table for a moment before she spoke. “Well, the hue and cry is up for you and Neeka, friend Iktis. Both the hunchbacked barbarian and the old whorekeeper were still alive when the city guard reached them, and they named you two as their murderers and the killers of the other two men.
“The killing of that hunchback is of little real importance since he was being sought anyway for suspected complicity in the assassination of Pehtros. But the deaths of the Skriffen bitch and her two pimps is another kettle of fish. She had recently bribed full citizenship for herself and them out of a crooked city clerk and an even crookeder undermagistrate, none of which would ever have happened had Gahbros not been off at the bidding of that asshole of a barbarian, Hari of Danyuhlz. So now you are wanted for the slaying of two citizens and Neeka for slaying one, which means that, if caught, you’ll be tried by the
thoheeks
himself, unless Gahbros comes back sooner than anyone expects. And considering the fact that our barbarian lord was a silent partner in the operation of that brothel, I’d not wager a pinch of turkey dung on your chances of staying alive.”
The pock-faced man shrugged. “Well, it is perhaps time that I moved on anyway, Rohza. Perhaps I’ll drift up to Goohm and try a hitch in the Ehleen dragoons.”
Lady Rohza pulled at her full lower lip for a moment, then nodded briskly. “Stay here for a few days. I’ll secure clothing and boots in your size and see about providing you with a trained warhorse. You’ll have enough gold to see you to Goohm and enough left over to outfit you as befits your inherent station—good-grade armor, hallmarked sword and so forth. I’m sure that
ee Klirohnohmeea
will reimburse me.”
Iktis nodded. “And if the Heritage doesn’t, you know I will. But what of Neeka and Shireen?”
The big noblewoman scratched her mannishly coiffured head. “The Ahrmehnee girl is no problem at all. Apparently no one living is aware she was even in the city. She can stay here until I have word of a westbound Ahrmehnee party— these Ahrmehnee are all thick as thieves and even if they are not of her tribe they’ll surely see her safely home.
“But as regards Neeka, it is not certain that even Gahbros could offer her protection from the
thoheeks
, so I’ll write a letter to an old friend who is now an intimate of Prince Zenos. Sweet little Neeka will be safe with me until my letter is answered.”