I had disposed weapons and troops as well as I knew how. Rufo, behind with a stock of arrows, could use them if needed and his position gave him time to shift to either sword or Buck Rogers "rifle" if his judgment said to—and I didn't need to advise him; he would.
So I was backed up by long-range weapons ancient and ultramodern in the hands of people who knew how to use them and temperament to match—the latter being the more important. (Do you know how many men in a platoon actually shoot in combat? Maybe six. More likely three. The rest freeze up.)
Still, why didn't I sheathe my sword and carry one of those wonder weapons?
A properly balanced sword is the most versatile weapon for close quarters ever devised. Pistols and guns are all offense, no defense; close on him fast and a man with a gun can't shoot, he has to stop you before you reach him. Close on a man carrying a blade and you'll be spitted like a roast pigeon—unless you have a blade and can use it better than he can.
A sword never jams, never has to be reloaded, is always ready. Its worst shortcoming is that it takes great skill and patient, loving practice to gain that skill; it can't be taught to raw recruits in weeks, nor even months.
But most of all (and this was the real reason) to grasp the Lady Vivamus and feel her eagerness to bite gave me courage in a spot where I was scared spitless.
They (whoever "they" were) could shoot us from ambush, gas us, booby-trap us, many things. But they could do those things even if I carried one of those strange guns. Sword in hand, I was relaxed and unafraid—and that made my tiny "command" more nearly safe. If a C.O. needs to carry a rabbit's foot, he should—and the grip of that sweet sword was bigger medicine than all the rabbits' feet in Kansas.
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.