The Horse Barbarians

17

“They say that if everything is the same for a long time, you can’t tell how long the time is because everything is the same. So I wonder how long I have been down here.” He trudged a few steps more and considered it. “A long time, I guess.”

The cavern branched ahead and he made a careful mark with the knife, at shoulder height, before taking the right-hand turning. This tunnel dead-ended at the water, a familiar occurrence, and he knelt and drank his stomach full before turning back. At the junction he scratched the slash that meant “water” and turned down the other branch.

“One thousand eight hundred and three… one thousand eight hundred and four…” He had to count every third step of his left foot now because the number was so large. It was also meaningless, but it gave him something to say and he found the sound of his voice to be less trying than the everlasting silence.

At least his stomach had stopped hurting. The rumblings and cramps had been very annoying in the beginning, but that had passed. There was always enough water to drink, and he should have thought of measuring the time by the number of notches he took in his belt.

“I’ve seen you before, you evil crossway you.” He spat dryly in the direction of the three marks on the wall at the junction. Then he scratched a fourth below them with the knife. He would not be coming back here again. Now he knew the right sequence of turns to take in the maze ahead.

He hoped.

“Cuglio, he only has one sphere…. Fletter has two but very queer. Harmill…” He pondered as he marched. Just what was it that

Harmill had? It escaped him now. He had been singing all the old marching songs that he remembered, but for some reason he was beginning to forget the words.

Some reason! Hah. He laughed dirtily at himself. The reason was obvious. He was getting very hungry and very tired. A human body can live a long time with water and without food. But how long can it go on walking?

“Time to rest?” he asked himself.

“Time to rest,” he answered himself.

In a little while. This tunnel was slanted downward and there was the smell of water ahead. He was getting very good with his nose lately. Many times there was sand next to the water on which he could sleep, and this was far better than the bare rock There was very little flesh over his bones now and they pressed through and hurt.

Good. There was sand here, a luxurious, wide band of it. The water was wider and must be deeper, almost a pool. It still tasted the same. He squirmed out a hollow in the unmarked sand, turned the flashlight out, put it into his pouch and went to sleep.

He used to leave it on when he slept, but this did not seem to make any difference any more.

As always, he slept briefly, woke up, then slept again. But there was

something wrong. With his eyes open he lay staring up into the velvety darkness. Then he turned to look at the water.

Far out. Deep down. Faint, ever so faint, was a shimmer of blue light. For a long time he lay there thinking about it. He was tired and weak, starved, probably feverish. Which meant he was probably imagining it. The dying man’s fantasy, the mirage for the thirsty. He closed his eyes and dozed, yet when he looked again the light was still there. What could it mean?

“I should do something about this,” he said, and turned his flashlight on. In the greater light the glow in the water was gone. He stood the flashlight up in the sand and took out his knife. The tip was still sharp. He raked it along the inside of his arm, drawing a shallow slice that oozed thick drops of blood.

“That hurts!” he said, then, “That’s better.”

The sudden pain had jarred him from his lethargy, released adrenalin into his bloodstream and forced him into unaccustomed alertness.

“If there’s light down there, it must be an exit to the outside. It has to be. And if it is, it may be my only chance to get out of this trap. Now. While I still think I can make it.”

After that, he shut up and took breath after breath, filling his lungs again and again until his head began to swim with hyperventilation. Then, with a last breath, he turned the light to full intensity and put the end in his mouth so that he could direct it forward by tilting his head. One, two, hands together and dive.

The water was a cold shock, but he had expected that. He dove deep and swam as hard as he could toward the spot where he had seen the light. The water was wonderfully transparent. Rock, just solid rock on the other side of the pool. Perhaps lower then. The water soaked into his clothes and helped pull him down, almost to the bottom, where a ledge cut across the pool. Below it, the current quickened and moved outward. Headfirst, pushing against the rock above, he went under, bumped along a short channel and was in the clear again.

Above him now was more light, far above, inaccessible. He kicked and stroked but it seemed to come no closer. The flashlight fell from his mouth and spun down to oblivion. Higher, higher. Though he was going toward the light, it seemed to be getting darker. In a panic he thrashed his arms, although they seemed to be pushing against mercury on some medium far thicker than water. One hand struck something hard and round. He seized it and pulled and his head was thrust above the surface of the water.

For the first minute all he could do was hang from the tree root and suck in great, rasping breaths of air. When his head began to clear, he saw that he was at the edge of a pond almost completely surrounded by trees and undergrowth. Behind him the pool ended at the base of a towering cliff that stretched upward until it vanished in the haze and clouds above. This was the outlet of the underground stream from the plateau.

He was in the lowlands.

Pulling himself out of the water was an effort, and when he was out, he just lay on the grass and steamed until some small fraction of his strength had returned. The sight of some berries on the nearby bushes finally stirred him into motion. There were not many of them, which was probably for the best, for even these few caused racking stomach pains after he had wolfed them down. He lay on the grass then, his face stained with purple juice, and wondered what to do next. He slept, without wanting to, and when he awoke, his head was clearer.

“Defense. Every man’s hand turned against the other. The first local who sees me will probably try to brain me just to get these antique furs that I’m wearing. Defense.”

His knife had vanished along with his flashlight, so a sharp fragment of split rock had to do. A straight sapling was raw material and he worried it off close to the ground with the chip of stone. Taking off the branches was easier, and within the hour he had a rough but usable quanterstaff. It served first as a walking stick as he hobbled eastward on a forest path that appeared to go in the right direction.

Toward evening, when his head was starting to swim again, he met a stranger on the path. A tall, erect man in semimilitary uniform, armed with a bow and a very efficient-looking halberd. The man snapped some questions at Jason in an unknown language, in answer to which Jason simply shrugged and made mumbling noises. He tried to appear innocent and weak, which was easy enough to do. With his drawn skin, tangled beard and filthy furs, he certainly couldn’t have looked very ominous or appetizing. The stranger must have thought so too, for he did not use his bow and came forward with his halberd only indifferently at the defense.

Jason knew that he had only one good, or halfhearted, blow in him, and he had to make it count. This efficient looking young man would eat him alive if he missed.

“Umble, umble,” Jason muttered, and shrank back, both hands on the length of stick

“Frmblebrmble!” the man said, shaking his halberd menacingly as he came close.

Jason pushed down with his right hand, pivoting the quarterstaff with his left so that the end whipped up. Then he lunged it forward into

the other’s midriff in the region of the solar plexus ganglion. The stranger let out a single, mighty whoosh of air and folded, unmoving, to the ground.

“My fortunes change!” Jason chortled as he fell on the other’s bulging purse. Food perhaps? Saliva dampened his mouth as he tore it open.