Генри Каттнер - Lands of the Earthquake

Automatically Boyce stooped and took up the blade that had saved him. Eyes still on the crowd, the youth reached out blindly for the hilt. The dagger seemed to jump into his hand, so expertly did he take it. Now he jerked his plumed head toward the door beyond him.

“You first,” he said. “Quick! Outside!”

Still too amazed to question anything, Boyce slid past him against the wall and reached the other door. The youth backed after him, both throwing blades poised menacingly. His lithe body was poised as menacingly as the knives. Boyce thought he was laughing, though he could not see his face.

He stood in the doorway a moment, his quick glance searching the room. Bare swords quivered in the light as the furious crowd about the table leaned toward him, none quite daring to be first to move. Eyes glared redly under the swinging lamp.

The youngster laughed aloud. Then with a quick motion he raised one booted leg and kicked the table over at the angry faces before him. Boyce, catching excitement from the sound of that exultant laughter, came suddenly to life and leaned out beside his mailed rescuer. Long arm and long sword reached over the armored shoulder and Boyce slashed the chain that held the lamp.

It crashed down over the falling table. There was a wild jingling of musical counters spilled from the game–board. The light flared sharply and went out. Darkness swallowed up the room and with it the angry faces of the men inside.

“Good work,” the young man laughed across his shoulder. There was the sound of a slamming door close beside them. Then, “Run! This way!” and a hand that still held a dagger nudged his arm.

Through pitch blackness, along an echoing passage, the two fled. Behind them through the closed door a confused uproar sounded. Then Boyce saw light ahead, and realized that they were coming out upon a broad underground pier with black water on both sides of it. At the same moment he heard the door behind them burst open and the shouts of the pursuers gain suddenly in volume, echoing hollowly along the corridor they had just cleared.

“Boat here,” Boyce’s companion gasped breathlessly. “End of the pier—hurry!”

The sound of their racing feet was like thunder on the hollow boards as they ran for the end of the dock. Someone yelled behind them, and a vicious whine sounded past Boyce’s ear. Ahead of them an arrow struck the pier and vibrated, singing.

The feet of the pursuers struck the dock now, and the dark underground place echoed and re–echoed to the noise of heavy boots on boards and the shouts of the angry men. A bowstring sang again and another arrow whined past. Boyce glanced back.

The redhead was foremost among the pursuers, purple cloak streaming from his shoulders. He brandished the stub of his mutilated whip, a formidable weapon still with its length of barbed lash. The rest made a jostling mob behind him, among which swords flickered in the light of the lamps strung along the edges of the pier.

Boyce heard again that annoying, familiar laugh among the shouts. He would place it when he had a moment to spare—he would think once more of the crowned girl whose name he knew again, after such a long, long interval of forgetfulness. But later, later—not now.

His companion was kneeling at the end of the pier, leaning over to untie a boat. He glanced up as Boyce came panting to the water–edge. “Hurry!” he said. “We’ll make it yet! I—” And then his gaze went beyond Boyce and he said more sharply. “Look out! Behind you!” and leaped to his feet.

Boyce spun. The redhead had paused a little distance away and was swinging his whip again. Shortened though it was, his range was too close to miss. Boyce dropped almost to one knee, ducking under the vicious inward curl of the lash, heard it whistle overhead and launched himself hard for the redhead’s thick body.

His shoulder struck the man in the chest, and he heard the gasping grunt the man gave and felt the toppling body give way beneath his driving blow. It had all happened quickly. Boyce scrambled to his feet as the redhead rolled across the dock.

He snatched up the sword he had dropped in the moment of impact, seeing the red–booted feet of his companion flash by him as he rose. He looked up in time to see his rescuer make a joyous sort of leap toward the fallen man, kick him twice in the face, and give the squirming body a last thrust of the boot–toe that sent him splashing off into the black water.

Then Boyce was clambering down the short ladder toward the boat with the first of the others almost upon him. Over his shoulder there was a flash of red boots and silver mail, and the armored youngster hit the boat before him. Boyce slashed the rope that held it to the pier with one stroke of his sword.

Beneath him, as the rope parted, he felt an instant forward surge and the pier seemed to drop away as if by magic in their wake. The boat was very low, and not much larger than a rowboat. It was dead black in color, so nearly the shade of the black water that to the observers it must seem they moved unsupported over the surface of the waves.

Whatever power moved it was invisible. It might have had a motor, but if it did, there was no sound or vibration to prove it. Boyce thought it must be propelled by some force of this unknown world harnessed to a science such as Tancred had described, a science so wholly alien that magic was as good a word for it as any.

Several more arrows sang past as the boat shot smoothly away, but the shafts dropped into the water behind them. In a few moments even the shouts from the pier had died, as the lights died, and the boat moved through darkness and silence.

Limp with relief and more than a little confused by the sudden change of attitude which his companion had shown during the fight, Boyce sat back in the boat and sighed heavily.

“All right,” he said. “What now?”

Against the dim luminance of the water he could see in vague outline the younger man’s hat and head and bent shoulders. He seemed to be guiding the boat. He laughed softly in the dark. It was not a reassuring sound.

“Wait and see,” he said.

Daylight glimmered ahead, the grey half–daylight which was all these drifting lands ever knew. The boat glided under an archway and Boyce caught his breath at sight of what rose before them. It was a great round tower that seemed to be all of filigree, story upon story of it, the interstices glazed with sparkling crystal. Its wall rose straight from the center of a moat–like lake.

Within Boyce could see dimly the shadows of moving figures here and there, no more than animate blurs upon the filigree walls. A tower of glass, he thought. And Guillaume had worn a collar of glass. Was there a connection there, or did all the City use glass–work in its building and its magic? He remembered now that he had broken through glass to enter this curious world.

The boat moved swiftly and smoothly over the grey water amid clouds of mist and a low door opened in the base of the tower as they neared it.

“Now we are home again,” the armored youngster said, and bent his head beneath the arch as the boat glided in. Boyce stooped too. They came into a water room walled with translucent glass, and a man in a brown tunic, a collar locked about his neck, came down broad steps to take the boat from its master.

“Come,” the young man said, scrambling out of the boat and hurrying up the stairs, his red boots flashing beneath the heavy mail.

Boyce followed him only as far as the platform around the pool. Then he took a firmer grip on his sword, glanced around the room for the nearest exit.

“Not yet,” he said grimly. “I don’t know enough about you. Let’s get all this a little clearer before I—”