I spent most of the day hidden from everyone I could, and this proved easier than most people would think. The Castle would be the last place in which they would look for me, the last place they expected me to be. Trained cops and agents might have thought of it, but these were mostly petty crooks, naive natives, and a couple of tough old ex-military birds like Artur. Several times I ran into people, but I just looked like I belonged and nobody really noticed. All I was really concerned about was minimizing my visibility and not running into anybody who knew me. I even managed to liberate a meal or two from the ones packaged for on-duty personnel, so I was hardly uncomfortable.
Still, I didn’t want to make the mistake of vastly underestimating my opponents, either. If Kreegan was still around, and I had no reason to believe he was not, he would at least block the exits as an afterthought. That wouldn’t entail much—just posting a couple of supervisors at every exit, particularly those from the service corridors. Getting out would be no picnic, and I really couldn’t afford a week within the walls. Each hour increased the risk of discovery and pushed my luck.
I checked all the possibilities, made my decisions, and was all set for the onset of darkness. Farewell, Zeis Keep, may you rot in the muck. I’d never see this place again, that was for sure.
That thought suddenly brought me up short. Ti.
She was still here, up there with that butchering sadist and his experiments.
I didn’t know exactly why, but late in the afternoon, I made my way back to Medical. From experience I knew that just about everybody in Dr. Pohn’s little shop of horrors knocked off work early. There really wasn’t much reason not to go there, and the only real danger I faced was running into Pohn himself. Now that I knew the potential of a Master I had no desire to meet up with Pohn in an adversary role. I’d timed my arrival pretty much for supper, in the hopes that my route would be clear, and I was lucky. There appeared to be nobody in the Medical area.
I stole quickly into the area that I would always think of as the morgue and saw the twelve silent sleepers there. Hurrying over to Ti’s tiny, still form, I looked down at her, trying to think clearly. Up until this point I’d thought of this as more of a goodbye visit than anything else. But now, looking down at her, I knew that I couldn’t leave her here to Pohn’s tender mercies.
I looked around at the others in the gathering gloom. No lights needed here, but the darkness made the place look even more like a repository for the dead. And they were dead, I thought sadly. The walking dead. What ancient superstition could conjure up only as a nightmare, the twisted sciences of Lilith had made a reality. I wanted to take them all with me, and would have if I could. Surely what one madman had done others not so mad could undo—but there was no way.
Without even thinking about it, I picked Ti up from the slab and carried her back to my service corridor hideaway. She seemed to weigh almost nothing; except for her shallow and almost imperceptible breathing, she was like a doll, a mannequin rather than a person. Picking her up again, I made my way toward my planned escape route, figuring I’d reach it at just about the point of total darkness. I had almost reached the point below the Castle’s left wall when it occurred to me that I had done something monumentally stupid in carrying Ti off. If anyone came back to that lab and saw her missing, they’d realize I was still on the grounds.
Still, leaving her here now would be cold-blooded murder. Moreover, it wouldn’t gain me anything, since she’d still be missed upstairs. No, stupid or not, the deed was done and I was committed now.
Although leaving Ti would have weighed on my conscience, what I was about to do didn’t bother me in the slightest. Somewhere there are classifications of crimes against others such as murder, and this came under the heading of “necessary.”
Just outside the small tunnel I was in was the Keep itself, the outside world—and two young paramilitary supervisors from Artur’s force. If either of them so much as knew where I was, they could inflict pain and stop me dead, at least long enough to raise an alarm. I had now to get by without any of that happening, and that meant killing the guards. I wished for the power that had allowed me to fry Kronlon, to reconstruct a chair from basic cells, but that was denied me now. I was faced with the problem of eliminating two threats who didn’t even have to touch me to get me—yet I had to get both of them.
I had the benefit of surprise, of course. They weren’t telepaths, nor did they have any special powers that would betray me any more than if they were two normal humans. And the knowledge of their power and my lack of it made them supremely confident.
I had several different plans for drawing them near enough to get, but it suddenly occurred to me that I had the almost perfect diversion in Ti—if in fact I could control her actions as simply as Pohn had. I certainly intended to find out. I put her down on the cold stone, confident that I was far enough away from the exit not to be overheard.
“Ti, open your eyes,” I commanded in a hushed tone.
Her eyelids flickered slightly, then opened. I breathed a sigh of relief in the discovery that this wasn’t going to be as difficult as I thought, although tricky.
“Ti, stand up and face me.”
She did as instructed, and I began to feel a little better. Still, I didn’t know how many instructions in sequence she could carry out.
“Ti, softly say hello.”
“Hello,” she responded dully, without a trace of life in her tone. Its very woodenness made me shiver slightly.
Well, now was the time to see how complex the instructions could be.
“Ti, I want you to walk two steps forward, stop, turn around, raise your right hand, and say ‘come here,’ ” I instructed. Those were enough separate instructions to tell me what I wanted to know.
She paused a moment after I gave the orders, then walked two steps forward, turned around, and did everything perfectly. I got a sort of erotic thrill from seeing her do it. The ultimate adolescent male fantasy, I reflected—except that it bordered on necrophilia.
The only other thing left to check was whether this was similar to a case of hypnotism and if the effect could be delayed.
I gave her a couple of minor instructions, then told her not to carry them out unless I said the word “escape.” Then I said the word and she did them, after which I tried a couple of other random instructions, then said “escape” once again. She immediately carried out my original commands, so I was satisfied.
I had deliberately picked this exit because a fairly large rock stood right near the entrance. Now, I felt, I had the best way of using all the elements, and I began to think that perhaps bringing Ti along hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
“Listen carefully, Ti,” I said. “Forget all previous instructions. When you hear me say the word trap’ you will do the following…”
It was dark outside the mouth of the cave into which the service corridor dumped. The two guards, a young man and an older woman, each wearing the black cape, pants, and boots of soldiers in Artur’s force, sat around looking very bored. They had been there quite a while and had exhausted most of what small talk they could muster, yet they couldn’t do much else but stand guard for fear that someone would get by them or, worse, that Master Artur would make a surprise inspection and find them doing something other than their military duty.
Still, each sat with the relaxed air of someone who is certain that the quarry is long gone and nothing whatever is going to happen. It was, then, with considerable surprise that they heard someone emerge from the small tunnel mouth. They both jumped to their feet, whirled, and advanced with tense curiosity.