Monster Of The Maze

Chapter 4

And so it was that Richard Blade came to the Land of Zir. Valli hid him in a pavilion in a deserted reach of the harem grounds. She put him in a closet there and swaddled him in rugs and contrived to bring him milk in bottles. Valli dared not trust any other woman or guard with her secret and so had to leave him alone for long periods. This was a great worry to the woman and none at all to Blade. His strength increased by the hour and soon he could open the closet door and crawl all about the ornate pavilion. On the second day he was walking, on the third striding, and on the fourth day he could run. His hair began to come in thick and dark.

He kept all this from Valli. She held him and gave him the bottle and marveled at how he grew, but in no way did she suspect the truth. Blade knew that he would have to tell her soon. She was the only friend he had, still the only means of his survival, and he spent long hours in pondering just how to go about breaking the news to her. He must not frighten her, or shock her into uselessness. Beyond his self-interest was his real fondness for the woman. Valli was, after all, the nearest thing he had to a mother for many years. But there was the mission to get on with.

The crystal told him that Lord L knew of his predicament and that it could be remedied on the instant that his Lordship worked out some intricate calculations and translated them for encodement into computer macroergs.

It took the crystal, wavering and fading and imperfect, many hours to get this telecommunication through to Blade; when he realized what Lord L was up to he was badly upset and sought to send a message, by fierce concentration, that Lord L hold back. Blade wanted a full month to grow in. He had a plan. A plan that would be ruined if he suddenly regained his adult stature and strength. He was greatly relieved when the thought came, crystal inspired, that his Lordship understood and would do as Blade wished.

Meantime he learned much of this new dimension. He hid and listened as various women came, always women in pairs or sometimes threes or fours, and used the pavilion as a place of assignation for Lesbian love. The Izmir of Zir was an old man, mostly impotent and with bad breath, and there were five hundred women in his harem. Small wonder, Blade conceded as he lurked and watched, that they sought out the pavilion to writhe on the divans and use their bodies and artificial phalli to gain relief. There was, it seemed, a death penalty for such behavior.

There seemed to be a great many death penalties in Zir, and this was a paradox, for outwardly it was a land of milk and honey, with the air warm and fragrant and the sun golden. Blade did not dare venture beyond the pavilion, but he sometimes watched from an open window and was impressed by the beauty of the great park in which the harem stood. There were cunningly clipped trees and flowering shrubs and flitting birds and song and splashing water everywhere. Graveled paths led through mazes of high-growing hedges.

Only once did he see any of the guards, two large men with hard, brute faces who wore baggy pants and beaded vests and carried both sword and spear. They passed near the pavilion, hardly glancing in its direction, and Blade retired to his closet and hid for an hour. He could not stand up to such men yet. Not for a month.

On the evening of the sixth day Blade knew that it was time to speak to Valli. She had been ohhing and ahhing about his rate of growth and he sensed an uneasiness, a fear, in her. His foster mother, in short, was beginning to suspect that something was very wrong.

It was dark when she came to the pavilion. The gardens were bright with hanging lanterns. She put her can of milk on a table and came to the closet where Blade lay in his swaddle of rugs. As she lifted him and carried him into an anteroom she said, «What a little giant you are becoming, my sweet. So heavy. Surely there was never a baby like you before in all the world. I am beginning to think that Stel was right and that you are a monster-child-«

«Stel was wrong,» said Blade. «I am not a monster, Valli. I am a full-grown man caught in a baby's body. You must not be frightened and-«

He might have expected it. Valli fainted dead away. She dropped him and Blade had to twist in midair to land on his hands and feet. He swore mightily and, mindful of his hunger, drank the milk down before he filled the can with water and splashed it into Valli's face. He knelt beside her and chafed her wrists and patted her cheeks and hoped for the best. If she lost her wits and ran screaming into the night he was going to be in a lot of trouble. He could not yet fend for himself. He needed Valli as much as ever.

There was one dim light in the anteroom. Valli's eyes fluttered open, black and luminous and huge, and she stared at the baby Blade. He smiled. She continued to stare. «I–I had a dream, a nightmare, I know not. But I thought you spoke to me, child. I thought you spoke with the voice of a man.»

Blade patted her hand. «I did. I am a man, Valli. Do not be afraid of me. I will never harm you. Just listen and try to understand.»

For a moment he thought she would faint again. Impulse bade him lean close and kiss her cheek. «You see, Valli. I love you. I will not harm you. You are still my mother.»

Valli moaned and lay back and closed her eyes. «I have gone mad. I am being punished for breaking the laws of Zir. I will be chained and whipped and my head will be cut off.»

Blade crouched beside her. «None of those things will happen. I will not let them happen. Now you must lie very still and listen closely and try to understand.»

«I understand nothing,» sobbed Valli. «I am a madwoman.»

Blade patted her hand. «Listen. I have come from a far place, a land of which you in Zir have never dreamed. I am a full-grown man and should have come as such, but a mistake was made and I came as a babe. But this mistake is being corrected-in a month I shall be a man again. Until that time I need you, Valli. I need your protection and your help and your knowledge of Zir. Do this for me and when I have my strength-I have never lost my wits-you will profit by it. That I promise. Anything you desire will be yours-you have only to ask.»

Valli had ceased to tremble. She half opened her eyes and peered up at him. «You are a demon, then? A wizard? A magician?»

Blade laughed. «None of those things, Or all of them, if it will please you. But for now you must think of me as a man in a baby's body. In a month I will be fully grown. It is that month that we must be concerned with-I must survive it. And we must use the time to plan, to scheme, to accomplish matters of which I will speak later. Now, does all this still frighten you? Do you begin to see, to understand?»

Valli sat up. She took his hand and pressed it to her breast and stared hard at him. «I understand nothing. But I am no longer afraid. I must believe what my eyes and ears tell me, and if you say such things are possible I must believe.»

«Then hold me,» said Blade, «and this time do not rock me or croon to me, but listen and answer my questions.»

Valli picked him up and carried him to a divan and, as she had been wont to do, nuzzled him to her bare breasts. Blade found this not unpleasant, though he had no desire for her teat now. He was beyond the need of milk. He could have devoured a raw steak.

Valli held him away from her and stared into his eyes for a long time. At last she sighed and said, «I begin to believe I do not dream. Your eyes are those of a man.»

In that moment he sensed the change in her. Her smile was somehow different and her eyes narrowed and the look that came over her lovely face could only be called sly. With a little shock he remembered that she was probably not yet twenty-this was really only a girl.

Valli said, «You made a promise to me just now. That if you live and your schemes prosper I could have anything I asked?»

«I did that.»

She pressed his face against her smooth warm breasts. «Could I have a child, do you think? A real baby of my very own?»

Blade's thoughts were elsewhere. A strange thing was happening to him. But he nodded and said, «Of course. If that is your wish. As soon as I have the power of Zir you may have as many children as you desire.»

He was naked, as usual, and he looked down at his tiny baby penis and saw it in an erectile state. Odd, because he was not really in a state of sexual excitement. Yet there it was. He put it down to automatic function, the contact of flesh on flesh, and tried to forget it. It would be a long time before he was the old Blade and ready for sex.

Valli cradled him to her again and began to rock him.

«Stop that,» said Blade snappishly, «or you will have me asleep. We must talk and plan, Valli. It will take the whole of the night.»

«I am sorry-but what shall I call you now? You who are a baby who is not a baby?»

«My name is Blade. You will call me that.»

«Blade- Blade-what does it mean?»

Blade sat up on her lap and scowled at her. «That is no matter. You must not be stupid, Valli. You must answer questions and do as you are told. And call me Blade. Just that.»

Her luminous dark eyes devoured him. Her gaze made him uneasy. In it he read doubt and fear and love and desire, even awe, and at the moment these things did not please him. He wished that Valli were brainier, cooler, more like a man than a woman, but wishing was vain and stupid and he must make do. She was all he had.

Valli seemed to sense his disapproval. She hooded her eyes and said, «I will do as you say, Blade. What do you wish to know?»

«Everything. Everything about Zir.»

They talked the night away. As the dawn crept in and the birds began to twitter in the bushes, Blade saw that his half-formed plan, until now little more than an armature for hope, might well come to fruition. It was remarkable how the pieces of this future jigsaw began to drop into place. Risky, yes, with mortal danger around every corner, but no help for that. Danger, fear, terror-they were all part of life in Dimension X.

Just before the sun came up Blade told Valli what she must do. She covered her face and sobbed. «No-no-they will kill you. And me also.»

«I do not think so. Not if you spoke truth about the Izmir and this high priest, this Casta. You said that Casta has promised the old man an heir, that he has made a prophecy that a boy will come to inherit Zir and lead it to new glory. Did you not tell me that?»

«I did, Blade. I did. And it is true. But the Izmir is a doddering old fool who believes lies. Casta is cunning and a liar and a villain. He is also the lover of the Princess Hirga and plots to put her on the throne. They are only waiting until the old Izmir dies, or until they can kill him without suspicion to themselves. Oh, Blade, do not do it! The Izmir will believe and welcome you-the High Priest will have you slain.»

Blade sighed. He was getting into another nest of vipers. Always so. He could remember thinking, back in Home Dimension, that for once, just once, he might stray into paradise. Vain hope. If he had learned anything at all in six trips through the computer it was that in all dimensions you found the foul rot of greed and lust and vanity and jealousy. You found brutes and cowards and brave men and fools. No help for it. Cope.

«The first hour or so will be tricky,» he admitted now. «If I live past that I will be all right. That is why your part in this plan is so important. You must smuggle me right into the bedchamber of the Izmir. He must be the first to see me and the first to whom I speak. Otherwise I have little chance.»

He kissed her cheek. «You see, Valli, I am still your child and dependent on you. You must not fail me.»

Valli wept and held him to her breasts. «Yes, Blade. I will try. I will do my best. There is a palace guard who is always after me. I do not like him, and he risks his head by so much as glancing at me, but I think it might be done. Ramsus would do anything to have me.»

At that moment the crystal ticked in Blade's brain and he felt a faint electric surge and knew that the computer had added another year's growth. An odd sensation-to feel yourself grow. Odder still was the sudden realization that Valli's breasts no longer looked so much like mother's breasts, the source of nourishment, but had somehow become more round and firm, softer blue-veined marble, shapelier, the nipples larger and more erect.

Blade slipped off her lap and ran to a window. The sun was up and dew sparkled like diamonds. «Then let this Ramsus have you,» he commanded. «It must be done. Perhaps he will get you a child into the bargain and by the time you come to bear it I will either be in power or dead. And if I am dead it is likely that you will also be. Now go. The sun is high and people are beginning to stir.»

«I want no child by Ramsus,» said Valli. She came to stand beside him at the window. She put her hand on his fuzzy head and stroked it. «My darling little Blade. I hate to lose you, to see you grow so fast.»

«Go,» Blade said, «and come for me tonight as planned. Be careful. If you are caught now all is ruined.»

«I come and go by a secret way. In the harem I sleep alone and the Izmir has not visited me for months. That is not the danger. The danger will come when I try to smuggle you into the Izmir's bed chamber.»

«We can only try,» said Blade, «and hope. Just be sure that you are a satisfactory lover to Ramsus this day. Make him desire you again. If he wants more he will be careful and cooperative and guard his own neck better. And in this case his neck is our neck. Goodbye, Valli.»

He felt like a pimp.

Valli lifted him and swung him high and kissed him on the mouth. «Goodbye, little Blade. I will see you tonight. Heed your own advice and be careful.»

When she was gone Blade retired to his closet and pulled a rug over him. He was hungry, starving, but if things went well tonight he would have food. If things did not go well he would not need food. He lay sleepless and tried to concentrate and let the computer, and Lord L, know what he was up to. After a time he sensed that he was not getting through and gave it up. The crystal was in one of its bad moods, on strike, and there were no impulses either way. Blade was on his own. No great surprise in that, for he usually was, and during the next thirty days he would survive, if at all, by his wits, guile, cunning and above all his brass, his gall.

Blade had no illusions about his chances in Zir. He had milked Valli far more completely than she knew-he was an expert in interrogation back in Home Dimension-and before the night was half over he had known that this was the worst snake pit into which he had ever strayed. Intrigue, cruelty, lust for power-it was all there. Zir was a land torn to shreds by jealousy and hate and clashing factions. Ruled by an aging, superstitious fool.

Superstitious. The Izmir of Zir was superstitious. In that, and in that alone, lay Blade's one chance of staying alive.

At last he slept. When Valli came for him that night after dark he had grown another year and was beginning to look like a very stalwart infant indeed. His hair was darker and thicker and already inclined to curl. Muscles were developing beneath the baby fat. Valli kissed and hugged him and when Blade drew away impatiently she laughed and said, «If I did not believe before-and all day I have been wondering if it was not a dream after all-then I must believe you now. I think you have gained ten pounds this day.»

«I don't see how,» Blade said crossly, «since I am starving to death. If I do not have meat soon I will never grow back to manhood.»

«You must manage a little longer,» said Valli. «In the morning, if this crazy plan works and we are still alive, you will have food.» She eyed him and with a strange little smile said, «In the meantime, if you want it, there is my breast.»

Blade shook his head, though her breasts were inviting enough. «No. I am grown beyond that now. I must have meat. So let us get on with it. . your lover Ramsus is going to help?»

Valli made a face and sank onto a divan. From an anteroom a single light cast a faint glow over her face. Blade noted that for the first time she was wearing lip salve and that her lashes and brows had been darkened. Her hair smelled of fresh scent and she wore new combs to keep it atop her head. Her kirtle was new, he saw, and shorter than before, and tonight she wore scarlet underpants.

I have, he thought sourly, a most beautiful mother.

«Ramsus is ours,» said Valli. «He will do anything I ask. He should, after this afternoon. He nearly killed me. He is not a man at all-he is a beast, a goat, an animal or a devil. I do not know what he is-except that it is impossible to satisfy him.»

«That is good,» said Blade. «He will want you tomorrow and the day after. That will keep him quiet and cautious. What is he going to do for us?»

Valli explained. Ramsus had promised to drug a guard who would normally be stationed at the door of the Izmir's bedchamber. The man would become ill and a substitute guard would be sought. Ramsus would volunteer for the duty.

Blade was pleased, but looked for flaws in the plan. «Suppose Ramsus is not chosen? Suppose another man volunteers and is given the post?»

Valli shook her head. «Small danger. It is dull duty and the palace guard is lazy and spoiled. They never volunteer for anything.»

Blade nodded. She was probably right. It was the same back in Home Dimension.

«So far, so good, but how do you get me into the palace?»

Valli patted his head and pulled him onto her lap. «Come, let me coddle you a bit before you grow too big.» She pressed his face against her breasts. «My little sweet-I hate all this. I do hate so to see you become a man so quickly.»

Blade pulled away. «Enough of that. How do you get me into the palace?»

«Simple enough-if nothing goes wrong. Stel has agreed to help me. I have told you of my friend Stel?»

«Yes, yes. She wanted to leave me to die. Can you trust her now?»

«I think so. I know things about her, things which I have threatened to tell if she does not aid me. Of course, I would not really tell, but-«

«Get on with it.»

Valli sighed. «You are becoming a man, all right. Already you give orders like the Izmir himself. Very well-there is a postern gate that leads into the palace near the old man's chambers. It is guarded by a single man and it is well known that sometimes he sleeps.»

«We cannot depend on that,» Blade complained. «This may be the night that he does not sleep.»

«Patience, little Blade. I know that. But Stel is to go to him and engage him in talk and, in good time, offer her body. They will go off into the bushes. It will really be no great hardship for Stel,» said Valli with some spite, «for it is a long time since she has had a man.»

«And then what-supposing this all works out?»

«I will sneak quickly into the palace, carrying you, and make my way to the chambers of the Izmir. The corridors are deserted at that time of night and, with good luck, I will see no one but Ramsus. He will be guarding the bedchamber. He will let me in and I will place you on the bed of the Izmir and depart, to pray and to hope that all goes well and that we will both live to see another dawn.»

Blade thought it over for a moment. There were no flaws in the plan-if his luck held. It was simple and uncomplicated and should work. And there was no alternative.

«It is the best we can do,» he agreed. «How soon do we go?»

«Two hours before dawn. I have a basket outside the door. I will carry you in that.»

And so she did. Matters went well. Their luck held and she left him on a great soft bed in which an old man snored loudly. Valli kissed him and stroked his head and whispered, «Goodbye, little Blade. If matters go badly we will both die. If they go well and you do come to power in Zir, you will not forget your Valli? Or your promise?»

«I will forget neither,» whispered Blade. «Go. Go quickly.»

Her kirtle rustled as she left the room. A door closed softly and Blade heard an instant of whispering. Then he was alone in darkness and listening to the Izmir snore.

Blade sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed and waited patiently for light to show through the curtains. He tried to concentrate, to get a message through to Lord L, but the crystal was still dead. As dead, Blade thought, as he might be if this gambit did not come off.

Once in the pavilion, when he had spied on the women who came there to make love, he had heard them mention that in Zir unwanted babies were strangled.