“Wait,” counselled Milo. “There may be a bolt or catch of some kind holding it secure.”
His dirk blade proved far too wide for the crack between door and metal jamb at the edge closest to the ring; so too was the blade of his skinning knife, and also his boot knife; but when he tried the slender-bladed dagger that he kept sheathed under his shirtsleeve, that blade slipped in easily.
When even with the center of the iron ring, the blade encountered an obstruction. While pushing the dagger against the unseen object, Milo noted that the ring moved a bare fraction of a millimeter or so. Maintaining pressure against the still-unseen obstruction, he gripped the ring in his other hand and twisted it right, then left, then right again. At that last twist the ring creakingly moved half a turn and the obstruction was abruptly gone; he was now able to slide the blade from corner to corner of the doorframe.
He sheathed the little dagger and scuttled backward on his knees, gesturing to the Horseclansman whose efforts had earlier failed to open the door.
“Try it now, Lari.”
Obligingly, the man set himself into place again, took his best two-handed grip again and heaved. There was a momentary resistance, then with an unearthly squealing screech that set the nearest wolves to yelping their displeasure, the trapdoor arose amid a shower of rust to disclose the first treads of what looked to Milo like a steel stairway, all covered with dust and cobwebs.
After bouncing his weight experimentally on those two easily visible treads while keeping his hands braced on the shoulders of two Horseclansmen, Milo gingerly began to descend the stairs into the yawning darkness, saber slung across his back and the big dirk ready in his right hand. While the men watched, all huddled about the square opening, Milo gradually disappeared into the waiting blackness, only the ring of his bootsoles telling them that he was still descending. Then, after a short time, even those sounds ceased.
The steel staircase wound down in a tight spiral, and for all that it trembled and crackled under his weight, Milo made it down to the bottom safely. Once there, he mindspoke the men waiting above him.
“The stairs held me, so they’ll certainly hold you, one at a time, but don’t come down yet. This room seems rather small. See if you can get that trapdoor open wider, then get back from around it so what light there is up there can penetrate to me. It’s black as the inside of a cow down here.”
The long-unused hinges shrilled like the screams of damned souls in protest, but the wiry nomads put their backs into the job, and presently they got the trapdoor almost flat to the floor of their eyrie, then moved to the edges of that eyrie.
In the increased amount of light, Milo could see that the chamber in which he now stood was indeed small, a bit smaller actually than was the roof above. Every visible surface was thickly covered with dust and hung with better than a century’s worth of cobwebs. But he could spot no droppings of any size or description, so apparently no animal or bird had ever gained access to this room. Staring hard, cudgeling his brain, it took him long moments to remember, to realize what the dust-shrouded object reposing on a shelf at waist level was. It was a gasoline lantern!
“I wonder … ?”
Wiping away the dust and cobwebs, he could see that there was little rust on the artifact, it being finished in chrome or stainless steel. Although very dirty, the glass was also intact, and there was even a filament still in place. Lifting it from the shelf he shook it beside his ear. It sloshed as if almost full, and if that liquid was gasoline … ?
He searched for and found the handle of the air-pressure pump and tried it gingerly. The shaft moved smoothly in its tube. Now, if he only had a match.
Milo let his fingers wander the length of the shelf, and near the far end, they encountered a small brass cylinder, all green and bumpy with a verdignis patina.
Not daring to hope, he brought his new find up into the wan light filtering down from above. It required all the not inconsiderable strength of his hands to break the screwtop free.
“Son of a bitch!” he breathed softly. The cylinder was packed with wooden matches, the head of each covered with clear yellow wax.
With the trapdoor closed and bolted and seven bodies gathered in the close quarters, the nomads soon ceased to shiver, and, as soon as their teeth stopped chattering, they all began to do so, exclaiming upon the clear, intensely bright light cast by the ancient lantern.
A lighted exploration of the small chamber disclosed another, larger, but otherwise identical lantern, two lumps of corrosion, that once had been flashlights, an assortment of rusty tools—several differing sizes and types of screwdrivers and wrenches, a couple of ball-peen hammers and a half-dozen chisels—two-gallon brass can of lantern fuel (so marked and almost full!) and, in a rotted leather hoister, a rusted and corroded thing that had once been a heavy-caliber revolver.
There was one other find. Set in the concrete floor at the fool of the spiral staircase was another trapdoor, this one a bit larger than the one above—about three feet by two feet.
Milo filled and lit the larger lantern, then set it on the shelf and opened the second trapdoor with no difficulty to disclose more steel stairs, but these looking to be in better condition for all that they still beckoned down into darkness.
He turned to the others saying, “Dik, Djim, you men all stay up here. I’ll mindcall if I need you or when I find food or water. Help yourselves to any of those rusty tools as take your fancy, but leave that thing in the corner behind the can alone—it was once a very deadly weapon, and it still might hurt or kill one of you if anyone tinkers with it.”
The floor at the bottom of the second flight of stairs was concrete also, but it once had been covered with asphalt tiles. which crunched and powdered under Milo’s bootsoles. To his left a few yards was a jumble of tumbled and broken brick and granite blocks all covered with plant roots. Milo guessed that he was now within the main building of the ruin, whereon the tower sat perched.
Behind and to his right, the remnants of rotted wood paneling partially covered what looked like still-sound brick walls. More of the rotted, ruined wood sheets framed the door ahead of him, its brass knob green with verdigris. Although the knob wined stiffly, it did turn. Nonetheless, the door remained firmly closed. Setting the lantern on the stairs, Milo put both hands and his full strength to the tasks of turning and shoving; at last, something popped tinnily and the door gave under his weight.
The air that wafted out of this new darkness bore a hint of dankness and another ghost of a smell that set the hairs on Milo’s nape a-prickle. Loosening the dirk in its sheath, he raised the lantern and cautiously stepped through the doorway.
IX
There was a scratching at the door of the yurt. Mairee arose and padded over to open the carved wooden door, then push aside the layers of felt and allow an elderly prairiecat and retired cat chief, Bullbane, to enter.
“May Sacred Sun shine good fortune upon all within this yurt.” The newcomer mindspoke the ritual greeting.
“And may Wind blow to you all which you desire, Brothel Chief,” Dik Krooguh beamed in reply, adding. “Will you not join our circle? Uncle Milo had admitted us all into his memories and was enriching us with the tale of how, long ago, the brave race of the prairiecats first allied themselves with us Kindred.”
“Wolfkiller? The mother of our race?” said the old cat.
“Yes, it was Uncle Milo found her and her kittens in much danger and … But I am certain that Uncle Milo, who actually was there, so long ago, can recall it far better than I could simply repeat things I have had mindspoken to me over my comparatively short lifetime.”