Chapter 10: Rescue

Chad continued to study the surrounding area; concentrating mostly on the castle so far above them and the streets and buildings of the town immediately surrounding it. When at last he was finished, he had built up a fairly complete threedimensional picture in his mind. His mental image was of necessity limited to a shadow sculpture of the actual substance, thickest where the substance had the most mass, with sparkles of energy showing where people congregated. At least one thing was in his favor; he'd found out by experimenting very carefully that as long as he stayed on the wavelength that best penetrated the thoughtscreen material, Khuran's adepts weren't very likely to detect him.

"What're you doin' in there, Kid?" Mike's whisper sounded anxious as he roused himself from the halfdoze that he could assume so easily. "You've been awful quiet."

"I'm ready to make my move right now," he answered grimly. "Hold onto your hat, and be ready for anything."

Resolutely ignoring a last trace of nervousness, he initiated step one of his tenuous plan. The men who held him captive hadn't felt it necessary to coat the chain on his ankle with the black thoughtscreen substance. His mind reached out easily to grasp the end link where it was held by the ring in the floor. A halfdozen heavy tugs proved that he couldn't pull it loose with mental forces any more than he could with his own muscles, but a series of hard pulls cooled it to where a sharp tap against the floor caused the chilled, brittle metal to shatter.

Next to go was the heavy cuff welded around his ankle. This was a little more difficult. He had to insulate the frigid metal from his ankle with scraps of rags torn from his tunic, to keep from freezeburning his skin. Now he was free, the chain that had bound him now a weapon. Another tendril of energy silenced the listening devices concealed in the walls of their cells. It was time for his next move.

The doors to their cells were locked, but his probing mind had no trouble flipping the tumblers and sliding the bolt back. He crossed the corridor, warning Mike to stay quiet until he was sure that he had silenced all of the listening devices in the other cell's walls.

"Lemme take care of that chain for ya." A few hard pulls with his mind and Mike's chain, too, was broken where it bolted to the floor. "Here, stuff these pieces of cloth inside the cuff around your ankle."

He tugged mightily at the cuff in several directions at once, cooling the metal until a sharp rap against the stone floor shattered it. Now there were two of them free, desperate men armed with lengths of heavy chain. They would be dangerous opponents in the close quarters of the dungeon corridors.

"Any jailer unlucky enough to get in my way buys himself a quick trip to Hell!" Mike wrapped the end of the chain around his fist. "I've had about all of this dungeon shit I'm gonna take."

Chad led the way to where he'd sensed the presence of the other captives. With a quick scan in all directions for enemies, he threw aside the screening net over the door to their area.

"Uhoh! I was afraid of this."

His muttered comment was echoed by Mike's fervent "Damn!"

Of the thirty or so men, women and children in the room, all clad in the simple green garments of the Followers of the Goddess, only two or three seemed even vaguely aware of what was going on around them. The rest of the prisoners sprawled limply in whatever position sleep had found them, many with halfeaten bowls of stew within reach of their limp hands. Starting with those who seemed the most alert, Chad and Mike tried to rouse them. It was no use, they only slid ever deeper into their drugged stupor.

"Now what? We can't just go off and leave them here like this," Mike protested. "But I'll be damned if I know what we're gonna do. We sure as shit can't carry them!"

"Be quiet a minute," Chad commanded sharply. "I'm gonna try something."

He let his muscles relax, extending a tendril of perception toward the central focus of fuzzroach mental activity. Making contact once more, he spelled out his problem in words and flashing images. The thought he got back was the same as before, a glimpse of open forest, and a flash of longing.

For answer, he projected a picture of the plant whose root yielded the vard potion his raiders had used in their attack on the Landsman's caravan. Along with it, he sent another picture sequence showing groups of fuzzroaches using strappedon dart throwers against marauding vards.

The thoughtcenter's activity rose to a higher pitch as his proposal was considered, then a questioning thought emerged.

"But, how are these things to be made?" Along with the words was a picture, much enlarged, of fuzzroach front feet with their clumsy digging claws.

Chad was ready for this one, too. He sent back a picture of a group of fuzzroaches trading gems and lumps of metal to a dimly seen human, receiving in return tiny dart projectors and even tinier darts. Again the sense of mental activity, rising to a frenzied pitch. The communal mind conferred with itself in thought forms and images not even remotely to be translated by human minds. This activity, received by Chad as a highpitched warbling whine, cut off in midflight to be replaced by a new sensation. Tiny minds moved in all directions in purposeful confusion. Chad returned to himself as a wave of motion seemed to ripple inward from all corners of the room.

"Hey! What's going on?" Mike peered futilely into the gloom, setting himself to swing his length of chain at this new enemy.

"It's okay. They're on our side."

Dozens of fuzzroaches swarmed in from all directions, each bearing a tiny dry fragment of what looked like some kind of pale lavender fungus. Quickly, a heap grew in the center of the room until there must have been four or five pounds of the stuff. The tiny animals (Or were they giant insects? Did the question even have any meaning on this planet?) retreated as quickly as they had come, except for six of them who arranged themselves in a precise circle around the pile.

Chad could sense an absorbing, a channeling and outpouring of energy drawn from the very stone walls around them, focused on the pile of fungus fragments. Mike bit back a swearword as the pile began to smolder. It burst into sudden flames and the last fuzzroaches dashed frantically for their holes as aromatic smoke billowed out, quickly filling the entire room.

"Wow!" Mike coughed, trying to wave the fumes away from his face. "What kind of smoke is that!"

Chad didn't answer, but tested the smokeladen air cautiously. It held a piney fragrance that reminded him of an October day in the Colorado mountains, and he felt an electric tingle along his nerves as pain and fatigue were temporarily forgotten.

The smoke dissipated as fast as it had come, leaving behind a roomful of prisoners who were rapidly coming awake. They yawned and stretched as though getting up from a restful night's sleep. In a few more moments, they were clustering around Mike and Chad, peppering them with questions, and crying out their excitement at the thought of being rescued.

"Hold it! We're still in the castle's dungeons, a long way from being out of here." To quiet them, Chad gave them a quick outline of their situation. "So, if any of you have ideas on the best way to get us out of here, I'm more than willing to listen."

There was dead silence for a moment. Then everyone started talking at once, or so it seemed, a confused babble that died down just as quickly as each of the speakers realized just what they were up against.

In the ensuing silence, Chad caught a faint scuffling sound echoing down the corridor outside the room. Sending a thread of perception toward the central chamber, he detected two shadowy forms descending the narrow stair that was the only entrance to the dungeon. Warning the other prisoners to be quiet, he and Mike crept cautiously to where they could peer through an archway into the central chamber.

"Let them get all the way down before we jump them," he warned, and Mike nodded his agreement, taking a fresh grip on his length of rusty chain.

The two intruders made their way furtively down the winding stair. Now they were where Mike could begin to make them out. He strained his eyes in the torchlit gloom, until finally...

"That's Stan! But who's that with him?"

"It's Zarinthe," Chad breathed. "What's she doing here?"

He waited until the two were almost down the stairs, then gave a short, sharp whistle.

"Stan! Over here!"

"Mike? Chad? How'd you get loose? Zarinthe and me came to see if we could do anything to get you out. The other prisoners are drugged, and we can't wake them up. There's no way to get them loose, but if you hurry, there's at least a good chance for us to make it out of here in one piece. Khuran has a big celebration going in the main hall. Nobody'll be down here to check on you until it's over."

"How about the two adepts?"

"They are much too busy eating and drinking to watch what is going on," Zarinthe answered Chad. "As long as you do not send out too much mental energy, you should be safe from them."

"Don't worry about that," Stan rumbled. "They're from Earth. They don't have no more mental powers than what I do, and that's less than none at all."

"That is where you are wrong," she disagreed gently. "One here has very strong mental powers."

"You're kidding! C'mon, Mike. You ain't got no ESP, do you?"

"Nope, not me." He shook his head ruefully. "It's the Kid, here who's the big noise in that department. He's the one who got us outa our cells. He got the other prisoners woke up, too."

"We're wasting time," Chad broke in. "You say the way's clear for us to get outa here?"

"That's right," Zarinthe agreed. "If we hurry, and don't set off any alarms, we can be out of the city before sunrise."

"What do you mean, 'we'? Are you sure you both want to go with us, or would you be better off staying here? We don't know what we'll find out there if the Followers have really been broken up the way Khuran said."

"I'll take my chance on going with you," Stan stated. "Khuran figures he don't need me no more. He never has liked me any too well, since I've never been none too good at takin' orders. The next time I cross him, from here on out, I'm afraid it's gonna be a knife in the gut for me. That's his idea of fun, watching people die that way."

"I'm going along, too," Zarinthe added determinedly. "In the Dark God's lands, only the adepts may possess powers of the mind. Men who are found to have the power may join their ranks if they are young enough, or else they are slain. For a woman, there is even less choice. She goes to the Great Temple to breed more adepts. As Khuran's daughter I have contrived to hide my powers, but lately, the adepts have begun to suspect. It is only a matter of time now before I am found out. Better death in any form than life as a breeder in the Great Temple!"

"Wouldn't your father protect you?" Mike asked.

"He has strong sons in plenty, and I am only one of many daughters. He would not oppose The Dark God for my sake."

"That's settled, then." Mike smiled down at her approvingly. "I'll get the rest of the prisoners so we can start moving."

They sneaked cautiously up the narrow stairs. Each prisoner was given a length of thoughtscreen mesh from the cell doors. With these tied around their heads, the resulting mental silence was as complete as the physical one.

The guard post at the head of the stairs, on the lowest cellar level of the castle, was empty, and Chad guessed that the guard had been unable to resist the lure of the celebration going on upstairs. Two more flights of stairs, and they could hear faint sounds of merriment filtering down from above.

"This way!" Zarinthe whispered. She lead them through a crumbling arch in a remote corner of the cellar and down cracked steps. A rotting door opened into a damp passageway that snaked its musty way out under the city. The last flickering torch was far behind them, but still they trudged through the darkness.

"Hush, now. We're coming to the end of the passage. The street where we come out should be deserted this time of night. The people in this part of the city aren't allowed to be out after dark. All we need to worry about is running into the city watch."

The narrow, littered street was empty of human life. Only a few scrawny vards scurried through the shadows, on the lookout for choice bits of garbage. They filed along through the shadows, keeping always to back streets and alleys. They were about half way to the outer wall of the city when Chad spotted a flicker of torch light. He motioned one of the older escapees forward as he heard the approach of marching feet.

"Stand out in the middle of the street," he whispered, pulling the scarf of thoughtscreen material off the man's head. "Act drunk."

"That's one thing I know how to do real good. Just watch me!" The man grinned, lurching out into the middle of the street. When the sixman patrol marched around the corner, they found him staggering along the slippery flagstones, tunelessly bawling out the words of a popular drinking song.

"Hey, fellowsh! I losht the party. Whish way ish it?"

"C'mon, old timer." One of the soldiers took him by the arm, not unkindly. "Party's over. You aren't from this neighborhood. Staying at an inn?"

"Yeah. The inn, tha's where. Dunno itsh name. Li'l place, down by the main gate. Lesh all of us go there. Buy you a drink. All of you!"

"All right, calm it down. There's people sleeping in these houses. We'll... Uh!" The soldier folded as Chad's chainwrapped fist caught him behind the ear, just under the edge of his helmet. Only one of his fellows was able to get a sword out before he was cut down with one vicious swing of Mike's chain, and the rest of the patrol was swarmed over by the other escapees. Wearing the squad's weapons and armor, they easily dealt with another patrol on their way to the outer wall.

"We're almost there," Zarinthe breathed, gripping Mike's arm excitedly. "See, there's a small gate over there to the left. They use it to take out garbage. It's locked on the inside, so it may not even be guarded this late at night."

All of Chad's new senses were tuned to their highest pitch, so when he felt a questing tendril of thought energy, he was ready for it. Melding with it, he returned an impression of a quiet street, a patrolling squad marching calmly along. At the same time, he traced the tendril back to its source. Sure enough, it came from the castle that sprawling untidily at the very center of the city, almost directly above the dungeons where they'd awakened. Another mind close to the first also emitted controlled patterns of energy, but not as smoothly and with much less power.

He could also sense the energies from other minds in the castle, small darting sparks from vermin infesting the straw that littered the floors, and faint glows of animals in the stables and courtyards. There was the usual background radiance of servants and other humans, but none of these had any trace of the pulsing peaks of minds that could reach out past their normal limits.

There were a couple of drowsing guards at the refuse gate after all, but they saw nothing unusual in the squad of approaching soldiers. There was a brief flurry of action, again unnoticed by the castle's watching minds. Once more, the escapees increased their stock of weapons at no cost to themselves.

"There is a stable nearby, with riding grahls," Zarinthe told them. "They are kept here for when the soldiers need to ride out after fugitives."

"Then let's get on them, and get out of here," Chad commanded uneasily. "Hurry up and close those gates. I'll fix them so that they won't open again right away."

"Hey, how do ya ride one of these critters," Stan complained as they piled onto their stolen mounts.

"Just hold on with both hands," Zarinthe answered, laughing in sheer delight at being free from the city and its dangers. "We'll see to it that you don't fall off or get lost!"