The corridor stretched ahead, no break, no sound, no threat. Soon the opening to the outside could no longer be seen. The great Tower felt empty but not dead; it was alive the way a museum is alive at night, with crowding presence and ancient evil. I gripped my sword tightly, then consciously relaxed and flexed my fingers.
We came to a sharp left turn. I stopped short. "Star, this wasn't on your sketch."
She didn't answer. I persisted, "Well, it wasn't. Was it?"
"I am not sure, milord."
"Well, I am. Hmm—"
"Boss," said Rufo, "are you dead sure we entered by the right pigeonhole?"
"I'm certain. I may be wrong but I'm not uncertain—and if I'm wrong, we're dead pigeons anyhow. Mmm—Rufo, take your bow, put your hat on it, stick it out where a man would IOOK around that corner if he were standing—and time it as I do look out, but lower down." I got on my belly.
"Ready...now!" I sneaked a look six inches above the floor while Rufo tried to draw fire higher up.
Nothing in sight, just bare corridor, straight now.
"Okay, follow me! We hurried around the corner.
I stopped after a few paces. "What the hell?"
"Something wrong Boss?"
"Plenty." I turned and sniffed. "Wrong as can be. The Egg is up that way," I said, pointing, "maybe two hundred yards—by the sketch block map."
"Is that bad?"
"I'm not sure. Because it was that same direction and angle, off on the left, before we turned that corner. So now it ought to be on the right."
Rufo said, "Look, Boss, why don't we just follow the passageways you memorized? You may not remember every little—"
"Shut up. Watch ahead, down the corridor. Star, stand there in the corner and watch me. I'm going to try something."
They placed themselves, Rufo "eyes ahead" and Star where she could see both ways, at the right-angle bend. I went back into the first reach of corridor, then returned. Just short of the bend I closed my eyes and kept on.
I stopped after another dozen steps and opened my eyes. "That proves it," I said to Rufo.
"Proves what?"
"There isn't any bend in the corridor." I pointed to the bend.
Rufo looked worried. "Boss, how do you feel?" He tried to touch my cheek.
I pulled back. "I'm not feverish. Come with me, both of you." I led them back around that right angle some fifty feet and stopped. "Rufo, loose an arrow at that wall ahead of us at the bend. Lob it so that it hits the wall about ten feet up."
Rufo sighed but did so. The arrow rose true, disappeared in the wall. Rufo shrugged. "Must be pretty soft up there. You've lost us an arrow. Boss."
"Maybe. Places and follow me." We took that corner again and here was the spent arrow on the floor somewhat farther along than the distance from loosing to bend. I let Rufo pick it up; he looked closely at the Doral chop by the fletching, returned it to quiver. He said nothing. We kept going.
We came to a place where steps led downward—but where the sketch in my head called for steps leading up. "Mind the first step," I called back. "Feel for it and don't fall."
The steps felt normal, for steps leading downward—with the exception that my bump of direction told me that we were climbing, and our destination changed angle and distance accordingly. I closed my eyes for a quick test and found that I was indeed climbing, only my eyes were deceived. It was like one of those "crooked houses" in amusement parks, in which a "level" floor is anything but level—like that but cubed.
I quit questioning the accuracy of Star's sketch and tracked its trace in my head regardless of what my eyes told me. When the passageway branched four ways while my memory showed only a simple branching, one being a dead end, I unhesitatingly closed my eyes and followed my nose—and the Egg stayed where it should stay, in my mind.
But the Egg did not necessarily get closer with each twist and turn save in the sense that a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points—is it ever? The path was as twisted as guts in a belly; the architect had used a pretzel for a straight edge. Worse yet, another time when we were climbing "up" stairs—at a piece level by the sketch—a gravitational anomaly caught us with a lull turn and we were suddenly sliding down the ceiling.
No harm done save that it twisted again as we hit bottom and dumped us from ceiling to floor. With both eyes peeled I helped Rufo gather up arrows and off we set again. We were getting close to the lair of the Never-Born—and the Egg.
Passageways began to be narrow and rocky, the false twists tight and hard to negotiate—and the light began to fail.
That wasn't the worst. I'm not afraid of dark nor of tight places; it takes a department store elevator on Dollar Day to give me claustrophobia. But I began to hear rats.
Rats, lots of rats, running and squeaking in the walls around us, under us, over us. I started to sweat and was sorry I had taken that big drink of water. Darkness and closeness got worse, until we were crawling through a rough tunnel in rock, then inching along on our bellies in total darkness as if tunneling out of Chateau d'If...and rats brushed past us now, squeaking and chittering.
No, I didn't scream. Star was behind me and she didn't scream and she didn't complain about her wounded arm—so I couldn't scream. She patted me on the foot each time she inched forward, to tell me that she was all right and to report that Rufo was okay, too. We didn't waste strength on talk.
I saw a faint something, two ghosts of light ahead, and stopped and stared and blinked and stared again. Then I whispered to Star, "I see something. Stay put, while I move up and see what it is. Hear me?"
"Yes, milord Hero."
"Tell Rufo."
Then I did the only really brave thing I have ever done in my life: I inched forward. Bravery is going on anyhow when you are so terrified your sphincters won't hold and you can't breathe and your heart threatens to stop, and that is an exact description for that moment of E. C. Gordon, ex-Pfc. and hero by trade. I was fairly certain what those two faint lights were and the closer I got the more certain I was—I could smell the damned thing and place its outlines.
A rat. Not the common rat that lives in city dumps and sometimes gnaws babies, but a giant rat, big enough to block that rat hole but enough smaller than I am to have room to maneuver in attacking me—room I didn't have at all. The best I could do was to wriggle forward with my sword in front of me and try to Keep the point aimed so that I would catch him with it, make mm eat steel—because if he dodged past that point I would have nothing but bare hands and no room to use them. He would be at my face.
I gulped sour vomit and inched forward. His eyes seemed to drop a little as if he were crouching to charge.
But no rush came. The lights got more definite and wider apart, and when I had squeezed a foot or two farther I realized with shaking relief that they were not rat's eyes but something else—anything, I didn't care what.
I continued to inch forward. Not only was the Egg in that direction but I still didn't know what it was and I had best see before telling Star to move up.
The "eyes" were twin pinholes in a tapestry that covered the end of that rat hole. I could see its embroidered texture and I found I could look through one of its imperfections when I got up to it.
There was a large room beyond, the floor a couple of feet lower than where I was. At the far end, fifty feet away, a man was standing by a bench, reading a book. Even as I watched he raised his eyes and glanced my way. He seemed to hesitate.
I didn't. The hole had eased enough so that I managed one foot under and lunged forward, brushing the arras aside with my sword. I stumbled and bounced to my feet, on guard.