Undying World

CHAPTER 7

That same night Jantor sent an armed guard of twenty men to fetch Blade. Sart was permitted to accompany Blade. As they wound through the narrow, maze-like tunnels that connected the main sewers, Blade found it hard not to remain untouched by Sart's fear. The slave was trembling and sweating and his voice broke as he whispered.

«I warned you, master. I warned you. Jantor has found out about that woman, that Norn, and now he suspects you and Sybelline of plotting against him. We are finished, master. You will be killed and I will be sent to the five-mile pits. Oh, I warned you, I warned you.»

Blade's nerves were none too good. He was without weapons. His spear bar, the one he had taken from Sart, had disappeared the first night as he slept. But he did not like whining, and he cuffed Sart so hard that the sturdy Gnoman went down in a daze. Blade pulled him to his feet as the guards watched impassively.

«That will be all from you,» said Blade. «From this time on you will not speak until I give you leave.»

They entered a much wider and higher main sewer than any he had seen before. The cobbled trough was dry, covered with sand and some rank weeds that were not made of plastic. In the air, there lingered the effluvia of long-ago sewage. Blade and Sart, surrounded by the guards, made a right turn and continued along the main sewer. They passed a vast cavern in which fires glowed and sparks flew as metal clanged on metal. It was a forge.

Blade whispered to Sart. «You may speak: What do they make in there?»

Sart, sullen and unforgiving, whispered back that the iron spear bars were made there. He himself had worked there for a short time.

«Just the bars? Nothing else?» Blade had long been puzzled by their lack of weaponry. Granted that the Gnomen were none too bright, were creatures of the moment with a brief attention span and small intelligence, he wondered why they had not developed other weapons.

Start answered his question. «What else should they make but the bars, master? What else is needed?»

Blade shrugged and let it go at that. But he would keep the forge in mind.

Jantor was waiting in a vast, domed chamber with brick walls and a floor of clean white sand. Iron railings and stairs led to the top of the dome, where Blade saw the underside of one of those enormous sewer lids. There was probably a kiosk above it and the eternal sleepers and that treacherous spying moon, waiting. For what? He had the cold, disturbing feeling that the orbfolk, and that moon, were waiting for him, and being patient. As though they knew the first act must be played out in the sewers.

The guards pushed Blade and Sart forward and retired to wait outside. Blade stood blinking in the flare of torches held in wall sconces. Sart clung to Blade's heels, muttering to himself and wringing his hands. Blade knew the man's terror was genuine. At the moment Blade himself was not feeling particularly valiant. His position was weak. He was at the mercy of Jantor. Anything he did now would have to be bravado and bluff.

Jantor spoke from the shadows. «This way, Blade. You will kneel before the throne, and your slave with you.»

Blade never knew for sure, but it may have been his sense of humor that saved him. As he made his way toward the voice of Jantor he saw that the «throne» was an armchair, a simple comfortable-looking armchair made of plastic, set on a raised platform of raw planks. The «throne» had undoubtedly been looted from one of the shops above.

Blade had the sense not to laugh. That may have saved him, too. Sart threw himself sprawling on the sand, beating his head against it, while Blade stood, arms akimbo, and regarded Jantor.

«I kneel to no throne and no man,» Blade said. «This is not meant as disrespect for you, Jantor. It is just my way.»

Jantor looked down at Blade from his armchair throne, his dome of baldness glistening in the torchlight. Jantor leaned forward to stare at Blade, his Gnomen brown eyes narrowed and catching red sparks from the torches.

He spoke calmly enough. «Sart, this slave of yours, has not told you of the five-mile pits?»

Blade shook his head. «He has not. He goes into a faint at the mention of them.»

Jantor nodded. «He is perhaps wiser than you. You do not fear the pits because you do not know them. But I know them. I have been in them. Listen well, Blade, and learn. I tell you this in warning, for I have use for you and I do not wish either to kill you or send you to the pits.»

Blade interrupted. «Must I stand? I am weary, Jantor. I have been working long hours making children for you.»

Jantor showed his stubby brown teeth. «That I can understand. For a long time I carried the burden alone. And I produced children. It remains to be seen, Blade, if you can do the same. So far you have done nothing. So far not a woman has missed her bloody time.»

Blade crossed his big arms calmly. He knew he was not sterile. He had a child-a boy-back in Home Dimension, a boy he could never claim and whom he had never seen.

«It is too early,» he told Jantor, «Give it time.»

Jantor nodded. «Yes. But let me tell you of the pits.»

He waved a hand and from the shadows came a girl. She was carrying a chair, a metal frame with a plastic seat. Blade was a trifle startled. She had been there all the time, so quiet and blended with the shadow that he had not suspected her presence. The girl put the chair down before Blade. She did not look at him but stood silent and motionless, staring at the floor as most Gnomen women did. She was hardly more than a child, perhaps twelve, but she looked clean, and her coarse dark hair sparkled in the light of the torches. She had taut little cupcake breasts and her waist was tiny. Her legs were short but thin and not yet beginning to bow. Instead of the usual denim skirt, she was wearing a plastic skirt and between her small breasts there dangled a delicately worked iron chain.

«This is my daughter,» said Jantor. «I have many, of course, but this one I claim for my own. Her name is Alixe and she is yours as long as you live.»

For once Blade was speechless. The little speech of Jantor's had sounded very like a command. Fury flashed in him and he stilled it with an effort. He did not like his life so arranged for him. Yet he must be realistic, bide his time and wait, be patient, and as soon as possible get the reins into his own hands. Either that or send an emergency call through the crystal in his brain. He would ask Lord Leighton to abort the mission and snatch him back through the computer-if he lived that long.

Blade said: «I thank you, Jantor. I will treasure her.»

Jantor grunted. «Do not treasure her-use her!»

Blade stroked the girl's hair and tilted her face upward. Her eyes, wide-set and deep brown, peered into his with no expression. She was pretty, well favored for a Gnoman girl, and her teeth were white even.

Blade smiled at her. «And you, Alixe? How do you feel about this?»

It would be a graceful way out if she refused him. And of course she would be spying for Jantor just as Norn was spying for Sybelline.

She had a chiming, childish voice. «I do as my father wishes, man Blade. He commands and I obey. If he says I am yours, then that is the truth of it. I am yours.»

Blade tapped her soft chin with his finger. «And you do not mind?»

She regarded him solemnly. «I do not think I will mind. You are well favored, man Blade, and it is time I left off being a child and became a woman. I will bear you many children and-«

«If he can have them,» broke in Jantor. «Go, Alixe, and wait outside. When Blade returns to his quarters you will go with him.»

Blade did not protest. It would have done no good. He contented himself with a few ripe and silent curses and with kicking Sart, who was still groveling in the sand and making fearful sounds in his throat.

«Stand up,» he commanded, «and try to act like a man instead of a slave. Go outside and wait for me. I would talk with Jantor alone.»

Jantor made no objection as Sart left the chamber, but an odd look lingered on his hairy toad-like countenance and he looked puzzled. The skin wrinkled on his shiny pate and Blade thought he was frowning. It was hard to be sure in the dim light.

When Jantor spoke his voice was calm, almost friendly.

«You ask the impossible of Sart,» he said. «He is a slave. You made him one when you defeated him, so it follows that if he is a slave he cannot act like a man.»

It was so near to syllogistic logic that Blade was again taken aback. He recognized it as a warning not to underestimate Jantor. Was the man shrewd or merely cunning? Both qualities were dangerous and only time would tell. Blade decided to change the subject.

He sat down in the chair provided by Alixe. «I'd like to hear of these five-mile pits. You have been in them?»

Jantor nodded. «For a long time. I was put there by the Morphi, the ones who sleep above us, for daring to presume above my station. I was put in a cell five miles down, Blade, where there is only darkness and silence such as you have never dreamed of. A little longer and I would have gone blind, as most do in the pits.»

Blade felt cold along his spine. It was an ordeal he would not want to face and Jantor's matter-of-fact attitude somehow made it worse.

«All sentences to the pits are for life,» said Jantor.

Blade grunted. «That cannot be long.»

Jantor leaned toward him, chin in hand. He seemed to smile again. «Sometimes it was. The Morphi were cruel and clever, far superior to any Gnomen, and they did not put us in the pits to die quickly and easily. Food and water were dropped into the cells by tubes and there was something in the food to make a man live a long time. I do not know what it was because I do not understand such matters, but I know I lived when I should have died. Then the sweet bomb was dropped just in time to save me from blindness.»

Blade stared. «The sweet bomb?» He was fast revising his opinion of Jantor. Here was one Gnoman who could remember and think in the manner of Blade himself. He wondered at the cause of it and guessed that the massive doses of additives and vitamins that Jantor had taken in his food while imprisoned must have developed his brain power far beyond that of the ordinary Gnomen.

«Yes,» Jantor was saying. «It was called the sweet bomb because it filled the land and our sewers here below with a perfume such as I have never known before or since. It preserved the bodies of the Morphi, whose power had been cut of, and it made all Gnomen males powerless to produce children. Every man's potency was killed except mine. I was in the five-mile pits and the effect of the sweet bomb did not penetrate that far. So when I was rescued and could see again, I found that I was the only man who could make children.

Now do you begin to understand, Blade, why I do not wish to kill you or put you in the pits? Why I want to be your friend and share rule with you? Between us we can produce a new and better race. When the time comes, and it all be long in coming, my people can move up and out of the sewers and inherit the good life of the Morphi. We will learn to live as they lived and to use the things they used. Did I tell you why I was sent to the pits?»

Blade shook his head. «Only that you presumed above your station.»

Jantor's great hairy belly shook as he laughed. «Yes, I did. I do not brag when I say that I was always more intelligent than other Gnomen. My own belief is that I am only half Gnomen. I think my father was a Morphi, banished to the sewers for some crime. That was their way. They banished their criminals to the sewers just as they put us, the Gnomen, in the pits. But never mind-when I was a very young man I ventured up there, out of sewers, and I asked questions. I see now that I was a fool, but I was young and I wanted only to escape the sewers and live like the Morphi. I did not last long. There was a fight and I killed several of the Morphi with my spear bar. I was sent to the five-mile pits.»

Blade craned his head in bad light, trying to see Jantor's thick neck and ears. Jantor guessed what Blade was looking for and said, «The power stud is there, but not developed. All half breeds have them, a wart of half-flesh and half-metal. Sybelline has one. She is also a half-breed. Her mother was a Morphi, raped by a Gnoman who went mad, ascended to one of the kiosks and seized the first Morphi woman who passed. He died in the pits, of course. When the child was born, for some strange reason it was not aborted, but it was sent into the sewers. The child was Sybelline. And now, Blade, we get to the important matter.»

Blade had a sinking feeling. He had been expecting something like this. He was, as so many times before in X Dimension, going to be in the middle of warring factions. Norn had said it-trouble was coming-and now Jantor was about to say it.

Jantor was silent for a long time. He stared at Blade, unblinking. Absently, as though his mind were elsewhere, he wet a finger and traced a fylfot-or swastika-on his bald head. Blade had noticed this before among Gnomen males — Sart sometimes did it-and because he knew what Jantor was thinking and did not want to hear it, he sought to forestall matters by asking a question.

He gave Jantor an inquiring look. «You make a sign to your god?» He did not dwell on the significance of the fylfot. By this time he knew that various XDs developed in curious and coincidental parallels with Home Dimension.

«What? Oh, this.» Jantor wet his finger again and made the sign on his bald head. «It is a habit. We Gnomen have no gods of our own. When the Morphi had power they were our gods. All Gnomen were told to worship them, though I never did. Now they sleep and there are no gods at all. It is not important.»

Blade persisted. «But the Morphi themselves-did they not have gods?»

Jantor nodded. «For a long time. They were made to worship the Moon people, the Selenes, what we Gnomens call the orbfolk. And do not ask me what gods the orbfolk worship because I do not know. What I do know is that just before the sweet bomb was dropped the Morphi declared themselves independent of the Moon and refused to worship them any longer.

Blade began to understand a little. «A rebellion. And the Selenes punished the Morphi by dropping the sweet bomb and cutting off their power.»

Again Jantor nodded. «The orbfolk are clever and patient and plan long ahead. When they are ready, if that time ever comes, they will turn the power on again and the sleepers up there will awaken. They will have learned a lesson, or so the orbfolk will think, and all will be as before — except that there will be no Gnomen race. That, Blade, is why you are here, why I have spared your life and why I talk to you now in confidence. You are going to help me, Blade. Together we may do it. If we fail, the consequences will be the same for all. Death.»

Jantor scowled at Blade. «In your case, of course, the consequences may come a bit sooner than for the rest of us.»

Blade shrugged his great shoulders. There was no way out of it, just as there was no way of avoiding a similar scene with Sybelline. That would come soon enough. He was indeed in the middle.

«What do you want of me, Jantor?»

Again Jantor made the fylfot sign on his shiny head and regarded Blade with narrowed eyes. He said, «I have not asked you whence you came or why you came. I do not really care. It is enough that you are here. But I saw you fight and kill and so I judge you the match of any five Gnomen. That is why I guard you with twenty, with another fifty in reserve. I think you can lead men, even stupid Gnomen. But not even that is of prime importance. What is important is that you may be able to produce children. Those children should be at least half again as intelligent as the average Gnoman now alive, though I pride myself that my children will also be intelligent. So between us, Blade, as the only two men with power to reproduce, we can found a better race.»

Blade, as was his habit in DX to avoid friction when it was pointless, appeared to go along. No sense in telling Jantor that he, Blade, was not going to be around.

So he nodded and frowned and said, «That will take a long time.»

«I know.» Jantor leaned forward. «And I do not intend to wait that long. I have figured something out, Blade. We Gnomen are not flesh-and-blood machines as are the Morphi.» Jantor grinned. «We are not so beautiful or so clever or perfect. But we have no power studs behind our ears and our life essence cannot be turned off by switching a lever.»

And Jantor fingered his own mutant stub behind his ear. He grinned again. «Only Sybelline and I have these, and it is of no matter. We gain by it, not lose. Our power cannot be shut off and still we are half as smart as the Morphi and twice as smart as the Gnomen.»

Blade agreed. «I can see why you are king.»

«Yes. Sybelline and I rule because we are the only two capable of it. But neither of us has the brain or the power that you have, Blade. You are far more intelligent than the two of us. I would be a fool not to admit it, and I am not a fool.»

Jantor was now talking freely and Blade thought it time to heed Lord L's admonition and ask a key question.

«The power source of the Morphi,» he said. «If you could show me that, Jantor, and I can understand the workings of it, it could mean great things.» A thought struck Blade and he began to improvise. «For instance, Jantor-if I can manipulate the power source, and I can restore the sleepers to life, then they will be the slaves and you the masters. Do you not see it? As long as you and your people control the power source, the Morphi must do as they are bidden or you simply turn off the power and put them to sleep again. Think, Jantor. There need be no war. You Gnomen will simply move up out of the sewers and take over. All that you have dreamed of will come true.»

Jantor was watching him with an odd expression. He said, «And what of the orbfolk, the Moon people? they see and know everything.»

Blade was skeptical. «Everything?»

Jantor nodded. «They knew the instant you appeared. They followed every move you made-as we Gnomen did, for that matter. My scouts tracked you through the city step by step-saw everything you did, then reported back to me and to Sybelline.»

Blade believed him. It explained why they had been so alert, why they had been waiting for him when he entered the sewers.

Now he gave grudging acknowledgement. «They are stealthy. I am trained in such matters and I did not suspect — not until the sewer lid was dropped.»

«That fool,» said Jantor, «is now in the five-mile pits.»

Blade went back to his argument. Lord Leighton was right. If this mission was to be fruitful at all it could only be in the discovery of the power source. He was sure that it must be broadcast through air space, beamed in the manner of radio or television waves. If he could ferret out that secret and understand it and get it back to Home Dimension, then England would have a secret that no other nation possessed. It would, thought Blade, justify the expense and the pain and the terror of all the expeditions into Dimension X. Blade decided that as long as there was any hope of finding the power source, he would not ask Lord L to abort the mission.

«So what,» said Blade, «if the orbfolk know what we do? What can they do? They cannot shut off our power. You said this yourself. And we can be clever. We will show them that we are no threat to them. We will ask for peace, to be let alone. It may well be that they will leave us alone. We can even agree to worship them as gods. What matter as long as you do not really believe it?»

Jantor nodded slowly. «You make it sound easy, Blade, and I know that it will not be. You may be right about the orbfolk. They are patient and they plan for eternity, and they will not move against us at first, maybe never. We could agree to worship them, as you say, and no harm done there.» He was silent for a moment, said, «To have the Morphi city up there… to have them as our slaves. would be a Gnomen dream come true.»

Suddenly Jantor looked glum. «No! I am a fool to listen to you. It is too soon to move. There are too many details, too much to be done. My people are not ready for that life yet, and how do we know that the Morphi would cooperate? There might be struggle and rebellion-all would end in disaster. The Morphi might choose to die, or to sleep again, rather than be slaves to us.»

Blade leaned in his chair and pointed a finger at Jantor. «They will not. I assure you of that. As long as we control the power source they will obey. I swear it to you, Jantor. Listen to me. Believe me. Given a choice between life and the sleeping death, given only that choice and no other, the Morphi will choose life. I will stake my own life on it. All we need do is to make certain that we control the power source. I can see to that.

«Now, Jantor, think well. Now is the time to act. Now! Not a generation from now. Tell me of this power source. Take me to it. Let me study it and make my decision.»

Jantor shook his head and once more made the fylfot sign on his head. «You have all but convinced me, Blade. I think you have something of the power in you. But I cannot help you in this. I do not know the source of the power.»

Blade looked blankly at him. «You do not know? You are king-intelligent, ruler of the Gnomen-and you do not know?»

Jantor scowled. «Do not make me sound as stupid as my people, Blade. No Gnoman has this information. I doubt that many of the Morphi themselves knew where the power came from. There is only one person who knows.»

Blade guessed. «Sybelline?»

«Yes. Sybelline. She alone. I do not know how she knows but she does. Once I doubted, back when I first became king and began to plan, but she convinced me. She disappeared and I crept up to a kiosk to watch the city streets. At a time she had promised, the sleepers came alive again. They wakened and moved, and for an instant all was as it had been before-for just an instant. Then they slept again. She knows. She keeps the secret in her head.»

After a moment Jantor added, «Why do you think I have not killed Sybelline before this?»

Blade could see the labyrinth of intrigue before him. He had no choice but to enter.

«Perhaps,» he said, «I can prevail on Sybelline to show me the power source. It is worth trying. Is she friendly to me?»

Jantor guffawed and slapped his belly. «She is friendly indeed. She desires you, Blade, even though she is long past childbearing. And more than that she will plot with you against me. She will whisper to you-in bed if she can get you there-that you and she can rule better than Jantor.»

Blade did not answer. What was there to say? Jantor was right. Norn had already hinted at trouble to come.

Jantor might have been reading his mind. «Sybelline will soon make overtures to you, Blade. You will pretend to fall in with her. You will seek the location of the power source. You will plot against me in everything but deed. You will agree to whatever she suggests, but you will take no action.»

Blade was curious. «You trust me so far, Jantor?»

«I trust you not at all, Blade, but I have spies also. And I have a thousand good men with spear bars while Sybelline cannot muster fifty. If you betray me, Blade, it will be bloody war and I will win. All my plans will be smashed and the Gnomen may become a dying race, but you and Sybelline will die first. It is a simple choice, Blade. Play me false and suffer. Be loyal and serve me and, in time, rule with me. You are much younger than I am. Would it not be a comfort in your old age to rule and to look upon the thousands of your children and grandchildren?»

Blade would have spoken again, but Jantor waved him silent. «Go now. Keep me informed through the little one, Alixe. Use her well, Blade, and keep her carefully. She is very dear to me.»

«And a spy to you,» said Blade as he left.

He heard Jantor laugh.