The Jewel of Bas
Copyright© 2024 by Leigh Brackett
Chapter 3
He did it like an animal, quick and without thinking. The Kald was quick, too. It jabbed the wand at Ram, but the little brown man was coming so fast that it didn’t stop him. He must have died in mid-leap, but his body knocked the Kald over and bore him down.
Ciaran followed him in a swift cat leap.
He heard the hunter grunting and snarling somewhere behind him, and the thudding of bare feet being very busy. He lost sight of the other Kald. He lost sight of everything but a muscular grey arm that was trying to pull a jewel-tipped wand from under Ram’s corpse. There was a terrible stink of burned flesh.
Ciaran grabbed the grey wrist. He didn’t bother with it, or the arm. He slid his grip up to the fingers, got his other hand beside it, and started wrenching.
Bone cracked and split. Ciaran worked desperately, from the thumb and the little finger. Flesh tore. Splinters of grey bone came through. Ciaran’s hands slipped in the blood. The grey beast opened its mouth, but no sound came. Ciaran decided then the things were dumb. It was human enough to sweat.
Ciaran grabbed the wand.
A grey paw, the other one, came clawing for his throat around the bulk of Ram’s shoulders. He flicked it with the wand. It went away, and Ciaran speared the jewel tip down hard against the Kald’s throat.
After a while Mouse’s voice came to him from somewhere. “It’s done, Kiri. No use overcooking it.”
It smelled done, all right. Ciaran got up. He looked at the wand in his hand, holding it away off. He whistled.
Mouse said, “Stop admiring yourself and get going. The hunter says he can hear chains.”
Ciaran looked around. The other Kald lay on the ground. Its neck seemed to be broken. The body of the squat, dark boy lay on top of it. The hunter said:
“He didn’t feel the wand. I think he’d be glad to be a club for killing one of them, if he knew it.”
Ciaran said, “Yeah.” He looked at Mouse. She seemed perfectly healthy. “Aren’t women supposed to faint at things like this?”
She snorted. “I was born in the Thieves’ Quarter. We used to roll skulls instead of pennies. They weren’t so scarce.”
“I think,” said Ciaran, “the next time I get married I’ll ask more questions. Let’s go.”
They went down the ramp leading under the Forbidden Plains. The hunter led, like a wary beast. Ciaran brought up the rear. They both carried the stolen wands.
The hermit hadn’t spoken a word, or moved a hand to help.
It was fairly dark there underground, but not cold. In fact, it was hotter than outside, and got worse as they went down. Ciaran could hear a sound like a hundred armorers beating on shields. Only louder. There was a feeling of a lot of people moving around but not talking much, and an occasional crash or metallic screaming that Ciaran didn’t have any explanation for. He found himself not liking it.
They went a fairish way on an easy down-slope, and then the light got brighter. The hunter whispered, “Careful!” and slowed down. They drifted like four ghosts through an archway into a glow of clear bluish light.
They stood on a narrow ledge. Just here it was hand-smoothed, but on both sides it ran in nature-eroded roughness into a jumble of stalactites and wind-galleries. Above the ledge, in near darkness, was the high roof arch, and straight ahead, there was just space. Eventually, a long way off, Ciaran made out a wall of rock.
Below there was a pit. It was roughly barrel-shaped. It was deep. It was so deep that Ciaran had to crane over the edge to see bottom. Brilliant blue-white flares made it brighter than daylight about two-thirds of the way up the barrel.
There were human beings laboring in the glare. They were tiny things no bigger than ants from this height. They wore no chains, and Ciaran couldn’t see any guards. But after the first look he quit worrying about any of that. The Thing growing up in the pit took all his attention.
It was built of metal. It rose and spread in intricate swooping curves of shining whiteness, filling the whole lower part of the cavern. Ciaran stared at it with a curious numb feeling of awe.
The thing wasn’t finished. He had not the faintest idea what it was for. But he was suddenly terrified of it.
It was more than just the sheer crushing size of it, or the unfamiliar metallic construction that was like nothing he had seen or even dreamed of before. It was the thing itself.
It was Power. It was Strength. It was a Titan growing there in the belly of the world, getting ready to reach out and grip it and play with it, like Mouse gambling with an empty skull.
He knew, looking at it, that no human brain in his own scale and time of existence had conceived that shining monster, nor shaped of itself one smallest part of it.
The red hunter said simply, “I’m scared. And this smells like a trap.”
Ciaran swallowed something that might have been his heart. “We’re in it, pal, like it or don’t. And we’d better get out of sight before that chain-gang runs into us.”
Off to the side, along the rough part of the ledge where there were shadows and holes and pillars of rock, seemed the best bet. There was a way down to the cavern floor—a dizzy zig-zag of ledges, ladders, and steps. But once on it you were stuck, and no cover.
They edged off, going as fast as they dared. Mouse was breathing rather heavily and her face was white enough to make the brand show like a blood-drop between her brows.
The hermit seemed to be moving in a private world of his own. The sight of the shining giant had brought a queer blaze to his eyes, something Ciaran couldn’t read and didn’t like. Otherwise, he might as well have been dead. He hadn’t spoken since he cursed them, back in the gully.
They crouched down out of sight among a forest of stalactites. Ciaran watched the ledge. He whispered, “They hunt by scent?”
The hunter nodded. “I think the other humans will cover us. Too many scents in this place. But how did they have those two waiting for us at the cave mouth?”
Ciaran shrugged. “Telepathy. Thought transference. Lots of the backwater people have it. Why not the Kalds?”
“You don’t,” said the hunter, “think of them as having human minds.”
“Don’t kid yourself. They think, all right. They’re not human, but they’re not true animals either.”
“Did they think that?” The hunter pointed at the pit.
“No,” said Ciaran slowly. “They didn’t.”
“Then who—” He broke off. “Quiet! Here they come.”
Ciaran held his breath, peering one-eyed around a stalactite. The slave-gang, with the grey guards, began to file out of the tunnel and down the steep descent to the bottom. There was no trouble. There was no trouble left in any of those people. There were several empty collars. There were also fewer Kalds. Some had stayed outside to track down the four murderous fugitives, which meant no escape at that end.
Ciaran got an idea. When the last of the line and the guards were safely over the edge he whispered, “Come on. We’ll go down right on their tails.”
Mouse gave him a startled look. He said impatiently, “They won’t be looking back and up—I hope. And there won’t be anybody else coming up while they’re going down. You’ve got a better idea about getting down off this bloody perch, spill it!”
She didn’t have, and the hunter nodded. “Is good. Let’s go.”
They went, like the very devil. Since all were professionals in their own line they didn’t make any more fuss than so many leaves falling. The hermit followed silently. His pale eyes went to the shining monster in the pit at every opportunity.
He was fermenting some idea in his shaggy head. Ciaran had a hunch the safest thing would be to quietly trip him off into space. He resisted it, simply because knifing a man in a brawl was one thing and murdering an unsuspecting elderly man in cold blood was another.
Later, he swore a solemn oath to drop humanitarianism, but hard.
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