It seems that there was a secret entrance into the city known to but a few. Shondakor was very ancient and many kings had held sway over the Golden City of the Ku Thad. During the long-ago days of some remote dynasty, a hidden entrance had been built whereby the main gates could be circumvented. Even the present royal house was not in possession of this secret, but the arts of Ool the Uncanny had, it seemed, discovered the whereabouts of the hidden door and by its means the Black Legion had gained entry into the city in numbers sufficient to take it before an adequate defense could be mounted.
As my reader can imagine, this news I found most exciting. If such a route could be made known to the Ku Thad force hiding in the jungles of the Grand’ Kumala, they might make very good use of this information to retake the city themselves. It would indeed be ironic if the secret entrance which had permitted the Black Legion to gain entry into Shondakor were to prove the very method of their undoing.
The secret entrance was not exactly a secret after all, as many hundreds of the Chac Yuul had gone through it before the gates were seized and the main body of the Legion entered the city.
Ere long I found one of the squat little warriors who had been among the advance guard into the city, and luckily he had a weakness for a certain strong liquor called quarra. From him I learned that the hidden route was not a secret gate in the walls, but a passageway tunneled beneath the walls and beneath the river itself! An astounding engineering feat, to be sure; and now that I knew the secret it was vital that I somehow pass it along to Lord Yarrak and his warriors. But I could hardly ride out of the city and into the jungles without arousing the suspicions of the Chac Yuul.
Fortunately, before parting from Lord Yarrak, he had envisioned the possibility that I should require a method of communication with him, and he had given me the name of a certain innkeeper in Shondakor who was friendly to the royal cause and who acted in the capacity of a secret agent, smuggling out information to the Ku Thad whenever it became needful to do so.
On one of my off-duty hours I found occasion to enter this inn, which was called The Nine Flagons, and drawing the innkeeper aside I exchanged with him the secret password which Yarrak had taught me. I entrusted to him a letter to Lord Yarrak wherein I divulged the hidden entrance to the tunnel. In that letter I also counseled Lord Yarrak to be patient and not to use the secret tunnel until such time as I gave the word, for I had yet to arrange with the Princess our escape.
The innkeeper, a large, red-faced man named Marud, promised to convey the message that very night.
“Gods, Captain,” he wheezed, for Vaspian had elevated me to the rank of komad upon entering his service. “I have kept my eyes and ears open for months, strivin’ to learn how these bandy-legged little horebs whelmed the city so sudden-like, and naught did I get for all my pains. You should only know how much free wine I had poured down Chac Yuul gullets trying to loosen a few tongues!” He chuckled, his vast, paunch quivering with seismic ripples of humor.
“They be a close-mouthed lot, yet you ha’ pried some valuable matters out,” he said.
“You will have no difficulty in getting through the secret tunnel, will you?” I asked. “I have not been able to discover if it is guarded or not, but if it is, at least no guards are stationed out in the open.”
He winked, grinning with irrepressible humor.
“Never you mind your heart about that, Captain! Old Marud has a trick or two in his old head. You just get along back to your place in th’ palace, and leave the rest of it to me. I’ll get yer letter into the hands of my Lord Yarrak, never you fear!”
And wiping his red hands on a filthy apron, the bald, fat little old innkeeper went waddling off to tend to the needs of his customers. I stood and watched him go with a bemused eye.
Vast of paunch, red of face, short of breath, the wheezing old fellow certainly did not have about him the air of a hero―he looked more the buffoon, if anything. But this very night would try his qualities to the utmost, and’ we should see if he had the stuff of heroes in him.
Rarely has so much ridden upon the shoulders of a single man.
Darloonds fate, and my own, and that of all Shondakor, lay in that letter old Marud had so carelessly stuffed into his leathern girdle. Well … we should see what happened … .
I returned to the palace without incident and made my way to the remote corner of that wing wherein the Prince’s suite of rooms was found. I disrobed and sought my pallet, but sleep did not come to me for a long time. For I was baffled by this priest they called Ool the Uncanny, and I marveled that he, an outsider, should have known of the secret tunnel under the walls of Shondakor when even the ruling dynasty of the city knew it not. (For had they known it existed, surely they would have had it guarded heavily or sealed up.)
What strange powers did this little man possess? And what role was he to play in this adventure?
At length, despite the tension and turmoil in my mind, the urge to sleep overcame me and I slumbered.
The skies of Thanator, those strange, shifting skies of golden vapor, lit suddenly with the sourceless glory of the dawn.
I became aware of running feet thudding down the corridor beyond my chamber. The shouts of distant voices came to me, and there was urgency in them although I could not make out any words. On sudden impulse I rose, drew on my leathern tunic, slung the baldric, scabbard, and sword about my shoulders, laced on my buskins, and went out to learn, if I could, the nature of this unwarranted excitement.
I intercepted a guard captain whom I knew slightly.
“What is all the disturbance, Narga? Is the palace being attacked?” I asked, laying my hand on his shoulder as he hurried by me.
“No, Jandar, nothing like that. But they have taken a spy!” he said curtly.
“Who has?”
“They who serve the Lord Ool,” was his rejoinder. “The spy was attempting to use the secret passage under the river and the walls, but was seized by the guards which the Lord Ool had commanded to be posted at that place.”
The chill breath of presentiment was blowing upon my nape.
“Is the name of the spy known?” I asked, with whatever semblance of casualness I could summon.
He nodded. “It is one Marud, a fat innkeeper of the city,” he grunted. “It seems he was attempting to convey some sort of message to the rebels in the jungle, but the Uncanny One, with his shadowy arts, gained forewarning of the plot”
“I see,” I said, and I fear my face went pale at this dire news, although so dim was the illumination at this hour that I doubt if my acquaintance noticed.
“Was be taken with the message on him?” I asked.
“No; or so I have been told. They seized him and carried him before Arkola the Warlord, but… :’
“But?”
“But he snatched a dagger from one of the guards escorting him and slew himself before he could be questioned,” he said. And then, saying he was called to his post, he bid me good-day and went on down the corridor, leaving me to my thoughts.
Alas, brave, loyal Marud! Obviously, he had slain himself rather than betray my part in this business. I felt a qualm of conscience. A man had killed himself to save me. Or, rather, to save me that I might yet serve the Princess Darloona.
Well, he was not the first patriot to die in the service of a worthy cause, and he would not be the last. But
I determined then and there that, once this dire business was resolved, and all our present dangers at an end, Marud’s sacrifice should not be forgotten nor his name go unremembered.
But one overwhelming question soon filled my mind to the exclusion of all other matters. Had Marud been seized before delivering my letter to Lord Yarrak―or after doing so?