Slave of Sarma

Chapter Six

It was as it had been three times before - he lay naked and unarmed in a strange dimension, the molecular structure of his brain so altered by the computer, the neurons and nucleic acids and proteins so scrambled and rearranged, that his cerebral cortex was in effect brand new. He could perceive a new world, a new dimension that was denied to men with normal brains. The human brain was an unexplored abyss: Lord Leighton calculated that the permutations were unlimited; there were thousands upon thousands of new dimensions into which Blade might venture.

Which one now? Where was he? Could he survive?

Richard Blade was already a different person in many ways. He had the same brawn and good looks, the enormous musculature that stood him in such good stead, the rough black stubble that grew fast and would soon become a beard. He retained his memory of Home Dimension better now than he had at first, and His Lordship had succeeded in developing a "memory bank" in Blade's unconscious. He would not have to consciously strain to remember in this new Dimension X - it would all be there for debriefing when, and always that terrible if, the computer found him again and snatched him safely back to HD.

But above all Blade was now a cunning human animal. Survive. There was sure to be danger. Isolate it, identify it, cope with it. Survive.

The slight pain in his head vanished. Blade lay on dirty brown sand. He could smell salt water and could hear the faint sound of waves. He was near the sea. Then a new sound - a feral clicking sound, a gnashing, menacing sound that was very close by.

Blade watched them closing in on him. A ring of crabs.

They had dull brown backs and yellow bellies and they were as big as wolf hounds. They clashed and skittered and watched him with nasty gleaming eyes. They formed a circle and gradually they crept inward.

Blade leaped to his feet. The giant crabs scuttled back in hasty sidewinder movement, clashing great pincers at him. Blade stood in the circle and watched them, at the same time casting about for a weapon. There were a dozen of the crabs and if they all attacked at once his stay in this new dimension would be brief.

The crabs stopped retreating. They watched him, weighing and considering, and he could read intelligence in the cruel eyes. These were no ordinary crabs, quite apart from size. These monsters could think!

There was a good sized rock buried in the sand at Blade's feet. He began to dig it out even as he made a rapid survey of the place. To his left a sea lapped in placidly. The water had a purple tinge to it. Patches of yellow fog drifted here and there. To his right he could see sere brown mountains in the distance.

Scattered up and down the beach, as far as he could see in either direction, were stout poles set into the. sand. From each pole hung a skeleton, some of them gleaming fresh and blue-white, some of them old and bleached. The crabs ate well.

They were hungry again. They began to tighten the circle about Blade. He picked up the rock, his big muscles straining, and raised it high over his head. The leader crab, a bit forward of his fellows, paused and the little eyes stared at Blade.

Blade measured the distance carefully. He took a step and heaved the rock. The crab scuttled back, but not in time. There was a nasty liquid sound, as though one had stepped on an enormous cockroach. The carapace shattered and a bloody ooze leaked out. A fetid smell filled the air. Blade felt sick. The remaining crabs fell on their dying leader like a pack of wolves.

Blade ran, vaulted the line of crabs and kept running. At full tilt down the long beach, naked and more than a little afraid, and under a sky as leaden as his spirits. It was a bad beginning in this new Dimension X.

He paused to examine one of the fresher skeletons lashed to the poles. The crabs had left nothing but gnawed bones.

Blade grimaced. What crime could the man have committed, to be so horribly punished?

It had been a small man, judging from the skeleton, and he had died as naked as Blade was now. No sign of cloth or metal or leather. Blade passed on to the next skeleton. Another small man.

He reached the end of the line of poles. The brown beach stretched away into mist. The purple sea, polka dotted with fog, made lonely sounds on the sand. Arid mountains looked inland. Lonely. Desolate. Only skeletons for company. Blade glanced behind him. The crabs were following him.

The cry came faint and forlorn from somewhere ahead of him. Blade stared down the beach. Nothing there. The crabs were getting closer.

Again the cry. A moaning sound filled with anguish and longing and fear. Blade shivered, though he was not cold. There was nothing out there. He moved on down the beach, keeping his distance from the pursuing crabs.

Once more the cry. Blade halted and stared. It was a human sound, what was left of it, and now it came from nearby. But where? He squinted through fog now rolling in from the purple sea.

"Help me! For the love of Bek, help me!"

Blade spotted it. A dark splotch on the sand. It could have been a melon or a ball, a mossy rock. It was a head. A head that moved feebly and a mouth that gaped and cried. "Help me - for the love of Bek, help me!"

The big man glanced back. The crabs were closer now. He ran toward the dark blob on the sand.

The man was buried to his neck in the sand. When he opened his mouth to cry out sand fell into his mouth.

Blade knelt beside the man. Long dark eyes stared up at him in anguish. The head was long and narrow, bald except for a dark babyish fuzz. The eyes implored.

The mouth said: "Save me, master. In Bek's name save me."

Blade looked over his shoulder. The crabs were coming along at a rapid pace. Blade began to dig with his hands. Slow going. He found a shell and began scooping. Sweat popped out on him.

"Try to help yourself," Blade grunted. "Twist and turn, push with your feet. Use your hands and elbows."

"I cannot. I am bound."

Blade cursed and looked back. The nearest crab was now only fifty feet away. The man was only half uncovered. Blade dropped the shell and ran to a solitary pole that stood some ten feet away. It was eight feet high, of iron hard wood and a foot in diameter. It was fitted with iron rings and straps. As he stooped, put his arms about the pole and began to pull, Blade wondered why the man had been buried instead of bound to the pole as obviously intended?

Blade strained. The pole was set deep into the sand. Sweat greased Blade's face and trickled down his body. The great thews in his arms and shoulders writhed like snakes under the smooth hide. Slowly Blade came upright, the pillars of his thighs bulging as he pulled the post out of the clinging sand.

The buried man screamed. Blade, the post on his shoulder, spun around. The crabs had arrived. One was darting at the helpless man. A great claw clashed and opened and reached out to tear away the face. Blade ran.

He rammed the pointed end of the pole through the crab just in time. The impaled creature gave a screaming sound and wriggled in agony. Blade raised the pole and let the dying thing slide off. He used the pole to push the shattered carapace closer to the other waiting crabs. They fell on it in a fury of slavering and gobbling sounds.

Blade went back to digging, keeping an eye on the gorging crabs. The smell was terrible.

The man's hands were bound with leathern thongs. Blade sawed them loose with a sharp edge of shell. "Now help yourself," he commanded. "Those crabs will be at us again as soon as they finish their brother."

The man tried, groaning with pain. He nodded toward the ravening cluster of giant crabs. "The capado are bad, master, but not so bad as those who set me here. We must hurry. They will return soon to make sure I am dead."

Blade was flinging sand in a frenzy. "Who will return?"

"The slave patrol, sire. Who else? With Equebus in command. Equebus who is the crudest man in all Sarma - may Bek strike him with fire and burn him slowly for many years."

Blade dug, panting hard. "You are a slave, then?"

"I was, sire. I was - but I escaped. I did not want to be a slave. I was caught. That is why I am here for the capado to eat, why I was buried in the sand instead of being lashed to the post. So it would take the capado longer to find me, so I would suffer longer in my mind. For the thinking about suffering is as bad, or worse, than the suffering itself. Equebus, the cruel rogue, knows - "

"Be quiet man, and dig - dig! We can talk later."

"I am nearly free. A little more about my legs."

Blade picked up the post and speared another crab. The feast began again. He went back to the man, made a swift survey, then seized him beneath the armpits and yanked him out of the sand. When he let him down the man collapsed on the sand. Blade knelt and began to massage the thin hairless legs. These Sarmaians, for what he had seen so far, were all fragile people. But then he had not seen many of them - one live one and fifty skeletons. None of that mattered right now. First things first. Stay alive and out of danger until he could get his bearings.

He killed one more crab, fed it to its kin, then pulled the slight man to his feet. The long opaque eyes regarded Blade with a touch of wonderment and fear. The little man edged away a step or two from this brawny hirsute giant.

Blade saw it and frowned. Best get matters straight at once. He had a sense of sand running fast from the glass, and he still naked and without arms or any helpful information.

"You need not fear me," Blade said. "Have I not just saved your life?"

The man looked at the crabs, writhing and crunching, and he shivered. Nodded. "You did, sire. I am grateful."

Blade smiled and nodded, then extended his big hand. The man stared at the hand, but made no effort to touch it. Blade laughed.

"In my land we have a custom - when two men decide to trust and help each other they touch hands. Now, I have helped you and I would have you help me. I am a stranger in your land and I need help. As much as you needed it just now. Do you agree? Will you touch my hand?"

The dark eyes narrowed as they studied Blade. Then they widened and a hint of a smile touched the lips and the smooth beardless face was friendly. A small-boned hand sought Blade's in a slight pressure.

"I agree. I am called Pelops. I was a slave, but am no more. I will never be again. I owe you much and I will try to pay the debt and help you. As long as you do not seek to make me a slave again."

"I make no man slave," Blade growled. "But there must always be a leader. I lead." He gave Pelops a cold stare. "If you do not accept that, and bide by it, we had better part now. I can make my way without you if I must."

Pelops' smile involved his whole child-like face. His teeth were small and white. "I accept that, sire. I will follow - so long as it is understood that I am no slave."

Blade clapped him on the shoulder. Too hard, and poor little Pelops reeled. "You are no slave," agreed Blade. "Now or ever - at least to me. But now to things of greater moment - when is the next slave patrol to pass this way?"

Pelops pointed. "Before I answer that, sire, you had best kill more of the capado. They are still hungry."

The crabs were creeping in once more. Blade slew four of them with the sharp pole and tossed it aside. He grinned at the little man. "Can you run?"

Pelops could. He and Blade backed away from the feeding crabs and broke into a lope, Blade tempering his stride to his companion. They ran in silence until the brown sand ended and rough shingle began to hurt their feet. The beach narrowed and Blade led the way into a marshy area where rushes grew thick and tall. A mile ahead of them the land jutted out in a sharp finger-like promontory.

Watery sun began to leak through the overcast. They squatted in the dense rushes and Pelops broke off a stalk and thrust it into the muddy earth to observe the shadow. Blade watched in silence.

Pelops crumbled the reed in his fingers. "In less than an hour the patrol will start from the fort." He indicated the promontory with a finger. "There is a fort there and a small harbor. You cannot see them from this side. The patrol comes this way and will spend the night at another fort far down the beach. Tomorrow they will return. Or so is the ordinary way - today it will be different."

Blade stared out to sea. For just an instant he saw a ship moving in the light fog. Or had it been his imagination? A rakish galley with a great golden sail and a double bank of oars?

He turned to look at Pelops. "How will it be different?"

The little man spread his hands before him. "It must be, sire. They will not find my bones, that is the trouble. They will find only a hole in the sand and a lot of dead capado. I have escaped again. They will: begin looking for me. They will never stop until I have been found and killed. And this time, because I have escaped again, I will be gutted and cooked on a slow fire in public."

Suddenly, with no warning, two silver tears left the dark eyes and slid down the hairless cheeks. "I am afraid," said the man Pelops. "The fire will be worse than the capado. And the sharp knife - "

Blade patted his shoulder. "That will not happen," he promised. "I am a stranger, cast ashore by a terrible storm, but I come from a far land where we know how to deal with such matters. Obey me, Pelops, serve me well, and I promise that you shall not be harmed."

Pelops nodded and wiped away his tears. Blade, after a moment, added, "Or, if it must be, I will suffer with you. I will not desert you."

Blade was an honest man. It would not do to promise more than he could deliver. He was in Sarma now, not Home Dimension. And still without clothing, arms, or shelter. This he mentioned to Pelops, who was beginning to watch the promontory with anxious eyes.

"Slaves are not permitted clothes." said the man. "Nor weapons. Except the battlemen, of course. They are permitted both clothing and arms, though they are still slaves."

Blade watched him. "Battlemen?"

Pelops nodded. "The ones who fight in public. For entertainment. Those who die to make a show for others. But you, as a stranger, would not know of this."

Blade snapped his fingers. "You are wrong. I, as a Stranger, do know of this." Gladiators. His agile mind, in that moment, began to weave a plan.

Pelops pointed to the spit of land. "No matter now. See there - the patrol is coming. They always search these marshes, without fail, for many foolish slaves hide here. They are always caught. We will be caught."

Pelops began to search the ground about him. "I must have a sharp stone - I will cut my veins. I will not be a slave again."

Blade scanned the sea. No sign of the galley now. The fog was about the same. He peered from beneath his hand at the file of foot soldiers and horsemen just winding down the far away cliff to the shingle below. He made a quick estimate. They had half an hour at most.

Blade plucked a tall reed and examined it. It was hollow. He blew a thin little tune through it. Pelops watched him.

Blade pointed to the sea a hundred yards away. "We will hide in there, beneath the water, and breathe through these. Select a good one."

Pelops did so, but his small shoulders were still hunched in dejection. "It may work," he admitted. "It is clever. I would never have thought of it. But we gain nothing but a little time - I told you, when they do not find my body the alarm will be spread all through Sarma. We will be hunted down. A slave hunt is a great festival in Sarma. And you, sire, because you are so - "

He broke off and would not look at Blade.

Blade smiled grimly. "You are thinking that I am too big? Because of my size I cannot hide easily and will be taken soon - and you will be taken all the easier with me? That is what you are thinking, Pelops!"

The little man did not deny it.

Blade said, "You must make up your mind about that, then. Stay with me or take your chances alone. I am going to hide in the sea while there is still time."

He began to crawl over the rough shingle to the sea. At the water's edge he glanced back. Pelops was coming along behind him.

The purple tinged water was tepid and so heavy with salt that they had difficulty staying under. Pelops especially, so light boned, kept popping to the top. He had trouble with his hollow reed and sputtered and thrashed about after a mouthful of water. Blade swore and helped him as best he could. He sounded the bottom until he found heavy rocks. By holding on to these they could stay under.

Blade sent Pelops under first and told him to stay there. Only a scant three inches of reed was above the waves, which were small, and Blade nodded in satisfaction. Barring bad luck it should work and the patrol pass them by. He lingered on the surface, his eyes and nose just above the water, and watched the slave patrol approach.

There was a double file of foot soldiers. Fifty of them. They wore kilts and short jerkins of leather, sandals cross-gaitered to the knee, and flat leather caps on which sparkled metal badges. Some carried long spears, some crossbows, and all carried shields of metal and leather. They were, Blade noted, all small men.

There were half a dozen horsemen. Or so Blade thought at first. Then he saw his mistake - there were five horsemen and one horsewoman. She rode well, her long mass of golden hair fluttering in the mild sea breeze. She alone rode without a saddle, her long white legs clinging securely to the prancing animal. She wore a short leathern skirt and metal breastplates that flashed like mirrors in the sun. She carried no weapons.

Blade delayed ducking under the waves. A little tableau now taking place on shore interested him. The foot soldiers and some of the horsemen were in the marsh, combing it out, walking and riding back and forth. The footmen poked their lances here and there into the rushes. All this was done with a mechanical efficiency that bespoke routine. They did not really expect to find any runaway slaves today.

Blade was watching the girl and a tall, thickset man who was obviously in command of the detail. He rode a white horse and now spurred it close to the girl's mount. Blade's eyes were 10-10 - a fact that none of the doctors in Home Dimension could quite believe - and though he was a hundred yards distant he easily made out the flash of white teeth under a great hooked nose in a dark bearded face. Jewels glinted from a spiked helmet. The big man said some thing to the girl, leaning close and placing a beringed hand on one slim leg.

She slashed at the hand with a riding crop and shouted at the man, her scarlet lips thin with fury. She pulled her mount around and went galloping down the beach. Equebus - blade knew it must be he - stared after her with a stony composure. His hand went to his belt and half drew a shiny dagger, then thrust it back into the scabbard. He shrugged, spat, and rose in his stirrups to bellow at his troops. Blade went under water and breathed through the reed.

When he surfaced the patrol was out of sight. He nudged Pelops with a foot and the little man came gasping to the surface. As they waded in to shore Blade said: "We will hide in the marsh again for a time. They will not think to search it twice."

He told Pelops of the incident between the patrol leader and the golden haired woman. Pelops grinned slyly and nodded.

"That was Equebus. A nose like a sword? And very dark of skin and beard? Yes - that would be Equebus the Cruel. And you say the girl struck him?" Pelops tittered. "I would like to have seen that."

Blade lay in the mud, brushing away a swarm of gnats. He was beginning to be very hungry and his longing for clothing and arms increased by the moment. Yet he knew he must bide his time and be patient. Wait and watch and listen. Reserve all value judgments. Survive.

His stomach growled. Blade scowled and slapped at the plague of insects. "The golden haired woman - can you also name her?"

Pelops narrowed his eyes at the big man. He appeared quite content in the marshy sludge and the gnats did not bother him. Now he favored Blade with a wry and mirthless smile.

"I think I know. Her name is Zeena and she is the daughter of Queen Pphira, she who rules Sarma in Bek's name. Equebus gets much above himself if he lays hands on Zeena. A bad mistake, that. Just as it is a mistake for you, sire, to think about women at a time like this. When we are naked and starving and unarmed. When I, for one, am terrified. This is no time to think about women!"

Blade's discomfort and empty belly nearly made him lose his temper. He checked himself in time. He stroked the dark stubble on his stubborn chin and regarded the little naked man. Then, because it was his nature, he could not restrain his laughter. The sound burbled up from his massive chest like thunder.

"In the first place, man, I am not thinking about women. I am thinking about food! Then weapons. Then clothing. In that order. But if I were thinking of women I do not see that it is your concern. I like women. I will have women when I please, and I do not need an undersized school master - for that is what you sound like - to say me yes or no. Neither do I need moralizing or philosophy, for neither of them will feed us or keep us alive. I hope all that is clear, Pelops? If it is, then answer my question and leave out the advice - who is this Zeena, a daughter of the Queen, you say? - and I suppose that makes her a Princess? - who is she that she rides with a slave patrol instead of adorning a palace?"

It was near to a tirade, for which Blade later blamed his belly and his frustration, and the little man shrank away. Yet his eyes met those of Blade squarely and he folded his hands on his chest in resignation. There was a primness about the gesture that began to rekindle Blade's anger.

"For that matter," said Pelops, "I was a school teacher. And in the palace, too. In the capital city of Sarmacid. I was a very fine teacher, very likely the best in all Sarma."

Blade took a deep breath and regarded him darkly. "Then what do you do here, little man? Sitting forlorn and naked, hungry, in a stinking marsh with a man you have never seen before? Answer me that, since you do not like to talk about women."

Pelops made a T sign on his scant, pouter-pigeon breast. "I was betrayed by a woman, sire. My very own wife. Me, Pelops, who was the favorite of her six husbands - or so I thought until she betrayed me to the slave patrol. Later, when I was taken, I found out that she yearned for a new and younger husband. This she could not do until I was made a slave and so was no longer considered husband to her. So you see, sire, why I say beware of all women. They are a trap and a snare and a - "

"A delusion," muttered Blade. "I know what you mean, Pelops." There were, he had found, certain constants in any dimension."

His anger ebbed away. Six husbands? This he must know about. He patted the little man on a frail shoulder. "Tell me about Sarma," he ordered. "It will fill the time and there is much that I must know. The more the better. Talk, Pelops, talk!"

Pelops made a tower of his fingers and stared over them at Blade. He nodded and smiled. Blade thought that the man had spoken truth - he had been a schoolteacher.

Pelops cleared his throat. "Of what shall I speak, sire?" He might have been about to address a class.

Blade scowled, then repressed a chuckle. "Of everything, little man. Of anything that comes into your head. Of ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings."

Pelops widened his eyes. "I do not remember having heard of - "

"You wouldn't," said Blade. "Don't let it worry you. Talk."

Pelops was in his element. He did not talk so much as lecture. Blade, interrupting now and again with shrewd and pertinent questions, ingested a capsule history of the land of Sarma in the next hour.

The lecture came to an abrupt end. A horseman appeared far down the beach, coming from the direction in which the patrol had disappeared and making for the fort on the promontory.

Pelops was instantly in despair. "A messenger to the fort. They have found that I am missing. A message will be sent from the fort to Sarmacid and in a few hours the whole country will be looking for me. And you, sire."

Blade was at the edge of the marsh and peering at the oncoming horse and rider. It was the girl with the golden hair.

He spoke over his shoulder. "How will they send a message to this Sarmacid?"

Pelops crawled through the mud to join Blade. The little man was pale and shaking. "There is a semaphore," he quavered. "Flags on a pole." He pointed to the range of brown hills inland. "There are such poles all the way to Sarmacid. The message will be picked up and passed on. It will be in Sarmacid by nightfall."

Blade nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He watched the horse come slowly down the beach, still half a mile off. The beast was tired and the girl was not forcing it. Blade made his decision. He had a half formed plan, still valid, but this new idea could do no harm - if he brought it off.

He turned to Pelops and spoke rapidly. The little man quailed. "I - I don't know, sire, if I can do it. I am not a very brave man, as you must know by now." And he made that curious sign of the T again.

Blade frowned at him and growled, "Do what, man? I ask you to do nothing! Just that - you will lie on the beach and play dead. As though you have used all your strength in trying to reach the sea, and have expired just as you did reach it. Just play dead. I will do the rest. Hurry now - she can see you and so put on a good act. Stagger from the marsh and fall. Get up. Fall' again not too far from the marsh edge. I want no great distance, for I must take her by surprise." He was remembering those slim white legs. She could probably run like an antelope.

Pelops forgot his fear in his horror at what Blade intended. It had just dawned on him.

"You would put hands on her? On the person of Zeena, daughter to Queen Pphira?"

"That," said Blade grimly, "is the general idea. I need a hostage. She will do as well as any."

Pelops began to tremble again. He made the T. "That is sacrilege, sire. Bek will swallow us alive. We will die in his fiery maw. I cannot - "

Blade clenched a great fist, then thought better of it. He was in Sarma now and Pelops could not help what he was. Blade folded his arms over his chest and stared down the beach at the horse and rider now only a quarter of a mile distant.

"I see now," said Blade, "why you were made a slave. It fits you, slavery. You were born to be a slave. And you will be a slave again, I can see that, too, because you are afraid of even a little risk So be it. I will try to do it alone. But I cannot catch a horse, even a tired one, and if she gets away and warns the fort we will be taken at once. I will not be taken because I will die fighting. But you - "

Tears glinted in Pelops' dark eyes. He dabbed at them with a finger and said. "No! I will not be a slave again. I will do it."

Blade gave him a little shove. "Get on with it, then. And remember, die not too far from the marsh. Die well and convincingly and leave the rest to me."

A strange little man, Blade thought as he watched Pelops stagger from the marsh. An odd mixture of cowardice and courage. Blade crouched at the very edge of the marsh and watched the girl approach on the tired horse. He cast a glance at the promontory, thankful that this strip of beach could not be seen from the fort. That would have been fatal.

The girl, Zeena, responded as Blade had guessed she would. At the sight of Pelops staggering and falling on the shingle she reined in the horse. She shaded her eyes and peered down the beach. Then, reassured that it was only the slave they were seeking, she dug her bare heels into the horse's sides and forced it into a weary gallop. Blade smiled grimly and waited.