Chapter 11: Blind!

He probed again and again at the featureless black mass of the Great Temple, trying to force his way past the barrier by brute strength. Nothing. He shifted his viewpoint around to one side, then to another. Still nothing. Even the great gates were layered with so many thicknesses of the black material that they were proof against his probes. If it hadn't been for the evidence of his eyes, he might have thought that the universe ended right there at the surface of the walls.

Narrowing down his focus, he homed in on a spot on the near wall, running his mental 'pitch' up and down as though playing a musical scale. At the highest tuning he could reach, the wall developed a faint blurriness. He could detect a hint of energy leaking out from the building's interior, but nothing more. No good, the coating was just too thick. It was impossible to probe deeply enough to pick up any kind of image from inside the massive pile of masonry.

Baffled, he tried a different tactic. Sending tendrils of mental energy spiraling deep under the ground, he studied the structure from its under side. This was more like it! From below the Great Temple was a hollow shell, lighted brightly throughout its volume by the glow of hundreds of pulsating minds. Sending out as little energy as possible, he studied every part of the massive building.

In one quarter of the Great Temple were long barracks, at this early hour still mostly filled with sleeping men. Close by, other barracks held the subtler glow of feminine minds. Some of them were sleeping, but others were already up and around, busy with menial tasks or tending to small children. Other parts of the temple seemed to be classrooms and offices, while deep in the solid rock were the familiar shielded dungeons. He carefully traced out corridors and ventilation shafts. There seemed to be no way in or out except through the gates of the temple. Breaking out of his semitrance, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

"What did you find?" Ahlenya watched him, concerned.

"Not too much. I couldn't find any way in or out except through the Great Temple, and I'm sure not about to try that route. But there has to be some way for us to get in." He accepted the cup of water that Charis handed him, drinking thirstily of the tepid fluid.

"Chad," Ahlenya ventured shyly, watching him gulp it down. "Where do they get their water?"

"That's a thought! Ahlenya, you're a jewel!" He closed his eyes and sent out another probe, only half noticing her flush of pleasure. Sending his point of view deep, he coursed back and forth, testing every crevice and fault of the mass of rock that upheld the building.

"Wells," he muttered. "Six of them, all tapping a deep gravel layer. They won't do us a bit of good. Hey, here's something that might get us in. Looks like a... Uhoh! Well, that's the way it goes. It'll get us there, all right, but it's gonna be smelly as all Hell." He opened his eyes, smiling grimly at his companions. "It's a natural string of caves that they use for their sewer. It comes out into a deep canyon, away over on the far side of the hill. It won't be pleasant, but it's the only way in that I can find."

"How far away is it?" Ahlenya looked apprehensively at the sunbaked rock and sand stretching away on all sides.

"Two or three hours of hard walking, at least. Can The Goddess move us over there?"

"Your idea is not a good one," The thin voice of The Goddess answered through Charis. "It is within my powers, but the use of too much mental energy of that kind so near to the Great Temple could well attract the attention of His adepts."

"I was afraid of that. I guess we'll just have to hike it, then."

Keeping at least one ridge between them and the Great Temple at all times, the little band slowly trudged along beneath the everincreasing heat and glare of the rising sun. While the sun was still low in the morning sky they could keep to small patches of shade at the bases of tall boulders or along overhanging walls of rock. As midday approached, these refuges from the sun's glare became ever scarcer.

There had been no rains in this region for weeks or months, and the canyon bottoms were all dry. Their small canteens, meant only to take them from one stream to the next in their travels through the forest, were long since empty. Chad was less affected, coming as he did from a heavier world under a hotter sun, but at last even he realized that they could go no farther.

"Hold it a minute." The sun was almost directly overhead when his exhausted little group stumbled to a halt amidst a wilderness of towering boulders. "This just ain't gonna work. We'll have to risk me using a little mental energy."

He concentrated for a moment, reaching gently out to their surroundings so as not to release any sudden bursts of power. The hot dry air stirred as though something moved through it, swirling restlessly. They inhaled gratefully as the air cooled, but he wasn't done.

Above a sandfilled depression in a shelf of rock, a tiny dustdevil formed and grew. The rock was scoured clean in an instant, then ground away and polished into a smooth bowl by the blowing sand. The tiny tornado thickened. They could see it turn white as the air within it cooled below the dew point. The misty cone grew thicker, and now moisture was raining down out of it, drops of cold clear water that were mixed with crystals of ice.

"That should do it." The miniature storm gradually died away to nothing as Chad released his grip on the moving air, leaving behind a large puddle of icy water as the only evidence that it had ever existed. They refilled their empty water bottles first, then drank deeply, splashing what little remained over their heads and shoulders.

"Let's grab a bite to eat, then we'll get going again," Chad suggested. "It's only a little farther, now."

Refreshed, and further heartened by the breath of cool air that Chad kept moving around them, they made good time across the rugged landscape. At last they dropped down into a deep, narrow canyon. As they climbed down its almost sheer side, an overpowering stench rose to meet them. They coughed and gagged at its concentrated essence of corruption until Chad managed to blow the worst of it away from them with an even stronger blast of cold, fresh air.

"Are you sure you can't get us in some other way?" Charis gasped, trying to breathe through her mouth.

"Afraid not, but I can't blame you for asking. Reminds me a little of the stockyards outside of Chicago on a muggy day." He kept a cool breeze blowing down at them from the clearer air overhead, keeping away the worst of the odor.

"It isn't too much worse than a barnyard manure pile." Ahlenya spoke gamely, but her greenish face betrayed how much she lied.

"Here's the outfall." Chad pointed to where foul slime oozed from a grated crevice partway up a steep face of rock. "Looks like our best bet is to make a pile of rocks and climb up to it."

They set to work. With a little help from Chad's powers, they soon had the rocks piled high enough to reach the lip of the low opening. The grating was not much of a problem, meant to prevent escapes, not hold off an invasion.

"There's head room enough for us to walk, anyway," Chad commented. He was the first to enter after they had pried away the grating, the others following his lead somewhat fearfully. Once inside, the cave opened out enough for them to walk alongside the foul stream. The light from outside faded as they moved cautiously ahead, but a faint glow from patches of mold on the walls let them see once their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. They went on and on. Time became something they had once heard about. The eternal night and silence crept in around them, until they had no way of knowing how many hours or days they had been creeping along.

"Only a little farther, now." Chad's voice jerked them from their reverie. Several of them flinched, fearfully realizing just how far they must have come, how deep they were beneath the mountain.

"Will the upper end of this cave be guarded?" Ahlenya's voice was little more than a whisper.

"I suppose so, but I didn't quite dare to check on it. We won't have to go clear to the end. There's a side passage just up ahead. It leads almost to the dungeons before it peters out. Once we get that far, I'll tunnel the rest of the way."

"A tunnel? Through solid rock?" Charis looked questioningly at him, then shrugged her shoulders when he didn't answer.

They had to scramble up a steep slope to their right to reach the side passage. It was a narrow crack, twisting and turning between tortured strata, winding its way ever upward. The cool flow of air that Chad maintained swirled around them, but as they moved away from the flowing sewage the cave grew darker, the patches of glowing fungus becoming smaller and farther apart.

"Watch your heads," Chad warned. "We're coming to the end of the tunnel."

They crouched in the darkness, waiting for they knew not what. Chad reached out, trying to reach the local fuzzroach group mind, but for long moments was unable to make contact. Then he found it, but this time there was no sense of vibrant strength in the intermeshing thought patterns. The currents were weak, grayseeming; the blurred pictures strangely furtive, evasive even. He tried to project a friendly image, reassuring them that he meant no harm, that he sought their help and would try to repay them for their efforts.

"We knows of you," was the only response he could get at first. "Go away. Leave we alone."

"I need your help," he insisted. "Your fellow hives agreed to assist me."

"We have nothing to do with them. We are few. We are weak." The reply was difficult to read. "Leave we in peace. We would do nothing to anger those who dwell here."

"They will not be angry at you," he replied gently. "They will be too busy with us to even think of you. Their minds do not easily reach the level that your thoughts are on. Wake those who are held prisoner here, so that we can rescue them. Some day, you will again be able to live in the fresh air of the green forests."

The thoughts of the fuzzroach mind blurred and shook. An eager reaching out to the sunlit glades of their ancestral home... A shrinking away from the thought of danger and open spaces... Chaos reigned in the hive mind, with individual thinkers straining against the dictates of the group will.

Into this confused pattern, Chad cautiously extended his rapport. He soothed and calmed the agitated network until the coordinating pattern lay almost somnolent, the individual fuzzroach minds operating freely. Only the underlying oneness of the enraptured group formed a background to their thoughts.

Once again, Chad projected pictures and thought patterns onto the linkage. This time there was no resistance from the drowsing hive mind. Tiny knots of energy moved and twinkled as scurrying fuzzroaches went about their various tasks. He set a portion of his own mind to supervise their actions, just as he had set another portion to maintain a constant flow of fresh air into the caverns. This done, he turned his attention to the wall of rock that separated his little group from the prisoners in the temple dungeons.