"There was a tarn, wearing the silver hobble, that was to kill him, but he freed the tarn, leaped on its back and mad good his escape." The slave put down the tub of vegetables and bread. His eyes were wet with amusement and he slappped his thigh. "He returned only long enough to tarnstrike tha Tatrix herself," he said. "The tarn carried her off like a tabuk!" His laughter, which spread to the other slaves in the room, those chained to me, was uproarious, and I understood better than I had understood before the affection with which the Tatrix of Tharna was held in the mines. But I alone did not laugh.
"What of the Pillar of Exchanges?" I asked. "Was the Tatrix not returned at the Pillar, and freed?"
"Everyone thought she would be," said the slave, "but the tarnsman apparently wanted her more than the riches of Tharna."
"What a man!" cried one of the slaves.
"Perhaps she was very beautiful," said another.
"She was not exchanged?" I asked the slave with the food tub.
"No," he said. "Two of those who are highest in Tharna, Dorna the Proud, and Thorn, a Captain, went to the Pillar of Exchanges, but the Tatrix was never returned. Pursuit was launched, the hills and fields combed without success. Only her tattered robes and the mask of gold were found, by Dorna the Proud and Thorn, Captain of Tharna." The slave sat down on the tub. "Now," said he, "Dorna wears the mask."
"What," I asked, "do you surmise to be the fate of Lara, who was Tatrix?" The slave laughed, and so, too, did some of the others.
"Well," said he, "we know she no longer wears her golden robes." "Doubtless," said one of the slaves, "some more suitable raiment has replaced them."
The slave laughed. "Yes," he roared, slapping his thigh. "Pleasure silk!" He rocked on the tub. "Can you imagine!" he laughed, "Lara, the Tatrix of Tharna, in pleasure silk!"
The chain of slaves laughed, all except myself, and Andreas of Tor, who regarded me questioningly. I smiled at him, and shrugged. I did not have the answer to his question.
Little by little, I tried to restore the self-respect of my fellow slaves. It began simply enough at the feeding trough. Then I began to encourage them to speak to one another, and to call one another by their names, and their cities, and though there were men of different cities there, they shared the same chain and trough, and they accepted one another. When one man was ill, others saw that his ore sack was filled. When one man was beaten, others would pass water from hand to hand that his wounds might be bathed, that he might drink though the chain did not allow him to the water. And in time, each of us knew the others who shared his chain. We were no longer dark, anonymous shapes to one another, huddling in the dampness of the mines of Tharna. In time only Ost remained frightened by this change, for he continually feared the flooding of the chamber. My chain of men worked well, and the quota was filled day after day, and when it was raised, it was filled again. Sometimes even, the men would hum as they worked, the strong sound resonant in the tunnels of the mine. The Whip Slaves wondered, and began to fear us.
News of the distribution of food at the feeding trough had spread, by means of the slaves who carried the tubs of food, from mine to mine. And, too, they told of the stranges, new things that happened in the mine at the bottom of the central shaft, how men helped one another, and could find the time and will to remember a tune.
And as time passed I learned from the food slaves that this revolution, as unannounced and silent as the foot of a larl, had begun to spread from mine to mine. Soon I noticed that the food slaves spoke no more, and gathered that they had been warned to silence. Yet from their faces I knew that the contagion of self-respect, of nobility, flamed in the mines beneath Tharna. Here, underground, in the mines, home of that which was lowest and most degraded in Tharna, men came to look upon one another, and themselves, with satisfaction.
I decided it was time.
That night, when we were herded into the long cell, and the bolts were shoved in place, I spoke to the men.
"Who among you," I asked, "would be free?"
"I," said Andreas of Tor.
"And I," growled Kron of Tharna.
"And I!" cried other voices.
Only Ost demurred. "It is sedition to speak thus," he whimpered. "I have a plan," I said, "but it will require great courage, and you may all die."
"There is no escape from the mines," whimpered Ost.
"Lead us, Warrior," said Andreas.
"First," I said, "we must have the chamber flooded."
Ost shrieked with terror, and Kron" s great fist shut on his windpipe, silencing him. Ost squirmed, scuffling in the dark, helpless. "Be quiet, Serpent," said the bull-like Kron. He dropped Ost, and the conspirator crawled to the length of his chain and huddled against the wall, trembling with fear.
Ost" s shriek had told me what I wanted to know. I now knew how we could arrange to have the chamber flooded.
"Tomorrow night," I said simply, looking in Ost" s direction, "we will make our break for freedom."
The next day, as I had expected, an accident befell Ost. He seemed to injure his foot with the pick, and he pleaded so earnestly with the Whip Slave that the fellow removed him from the chain and, putting a collar on his throat, led him limping away. This would have been an unusual solicitation on the part of the Whip Slave but it was obvious to him as to the rest of us that Ost wished to speak with him alone, to communicate information of extreme importance.
"You should have killed him," said Kron of Tharna.
"No," I said.
The bull-like man of Tharna looked at me questioningly and shrugged. That night the slaves who brought the tub of food were accompanied by a dozen warriors.
That night Ost was not returned to the chain. "His foot requires care," said the Whip Slave, gesturing us toward the long cell.
When the iron door was shut and the bolts shot into place, I heard the Whip Slave laugh.
The men were despondent.
"Tonight," said Andreas of Tor, "you know the chamber will be flooded." "Yes," I said, and he looked at me in disbelief.
I called to the man at the far end of the chamber. "Pass the lamp," I said. I took the lamp and went, some of my fellow prisoners perforce accompanying me, and held it to the circular shaft, about two feet in diameter, down which the water would hurtle. There was an iron grating set in the stone, about eight feet high in the shaft. From somewhere above we heard the movement of a valve.
"Lift me!" I cried, and on the shoulders of Andreas and the slave shackled beside me, I was lifted into the shaft. Its sides were smooth and slimy. My hands slipped on them.
Chained as I was I could not get to the grating.
I cursed.
Then it seemed that Andreas and the slave grew beneath my feet. Other slaves knelt beneath them, giving their backs that the two might rise higher. Standing side by side they lifted me higher into the shaft. My shackled wrists seized the grating.
"I have it," I cried. "Drag me down!"
Then Andreas and the slave fell in the shaft and I felt the chains that fastened my wrists and ankles to theirs tearing at my limbs. "Pull!" I cried, and the hundred slaves in the long room began to draw on the chains. My hands bled on the grating, the blood falling back in my upturned face, but I would not release the bars. "Pull!" I cried.
A trickle of water from above moved down the sides of the stones. The valve was opening.