The cellar was old, obviously much older than the house above, larger, too, walled and floored with dressed stone, like the worn stairs which led down to it Droplets of blood were at the head of those stairs, a few more were at the bottom, and yet another sprinkling was at a spot near the east wall of the cellar, along with a faded scrap of fine woolen cloth.
“When first I came down here, my lord, this bit of cloth was protruding from between two of the wall stones. I thought it odd and examined the wall more closely. As my lord may know, my father is lord architect of Kehnooryos Atheenahs. My brothers and I often accompanied him in his duties in that and other cities, so I have some small knowledge of things which might not occur to the thinking of your average officer.
“Look around you, my lord. This cellar is clearly of older and finer construction than the structure upstairs, and it’s at least half again bigger. The original structure was no doubt stone as well, stone and timber, and it burned. If my lord will look up there, near the ceiling, he still can see the fire marks. That structure was never rebuilt, but its foundation, including this cellar, was used for the brickwork house still standing.”
“What,” demanded Vakos, “has all this to do with our elusive murderer, lieutenant?”
With a languid, assured smile, the officer replied, “Please bear with me, my lord. Now, when these frontier cities were built, often the citadels and walled mansions were completed before the city walls even were commenced. So, since the residents and garrisons were often in constant danger of barbarian attack, they frequently devised ways of communicating one with the other, of getting supplies or reinforcements to hard-pressed areas quickly and safely, of—”
Vaskos’ big fist smacked into his horny palm and his black eyes flashed. “Tunnels! Of course! That’s why we’ve never caught the bastard, or even seen him, despite streets crowded with patrols. I must be getting senile, lieutenant I should have thought of it ere this.”
Young Gahloopohlos showed a rueful grin. “Then I fear I must share my lord’s senility, for even with my experience, I gave no thought to the matter until it slapped me in the face.”
Vaskos nodded brusquely. “Well, we know now, good Gahloopohlos. It sounds reasonable to me. Let us get a squad down here with sledges and bars, get these stones down and see if we’re right.”
The officer shook his head. “Such measures are unnecessary, my lord. You see?” Sidling to a section of wall which looked no different from many other sections about the cellar, he placed both hands flat upon it and, bunching his body behind his shoulders, heaved. His feet slid back on the rough flooring as the wall section briefly resisted his strength, but then, with a ponderous grinding and a shriek of seldom-used metal, a man-length of wall swiveled to reveal a stygian-black rectangle from which emanated the cold, dank smell of sunless earth.
Vaskos waited for the arrival of additional men before he, Ahlee, the lieutenant and a squad of soldiers filed into the narrow tunnel. Only a few steps did they proceed, however, for the way was blocked by a mound of earth and chunks of soft, rotten timber. An aperture no more than two feet wide or high had been dug through the blockage, and there they found more blood and another shred of the same fine, woolen.
There was another wait, for not liking the look of the extant shoring, Vaskos had some of the soldiers repair the areas above and return with odds and ends to strengthen the worm-eaten boards and columns. Then, one at a time, holding their torches before them, the officers, the physician and a dozen men wriggled through the ten terrible suffocating feet of crumbling earth.
Beyond, the narrow tunnel continued for a few more paces, then entered at a right angle into a wider and better-shored tunnel which seemed to stretch infinitely away in two directions.
“Sun and Wind!” swore Vaskos, softly. “The bastard could have taken that poor woman in either direction.
There’s nothing else for it but to split up. Gahloopohlos, you take six men and head that way. The master and I will take five and head the other. Sergeant Dahbzuhn, go back to the cellar and get the other squad, less two men to stand guard. You bring five after me and send five after the lieutenant. And sergeant, all of you, make no unnecessary noise until the quarry’s in plain sight and, let’s hope, at bay. He surely knows these tunnels better than we do, and we can’t afford to miss him yet again.”
Arrived in his cellar, Danos had gone through the joyless motions—stripping and gagging the half-conscious woman, then securing her ankles and wrists to a large rectangle of strong wooden construction. He had fabricated the rectangle many long months before, during the early days of the siege. With a victim’s hands and feet lashed to its corners, the tenderest and most sensitive portions of the body were easily accessible to whip or knife, fingers or teeth, pincers or licking flame.
That detail attended to, he had employed the whip, pulping first the back, then turning the rectangle and its moaning, fainting occupant to lay open the tender breasts with the blood-wet lash. By this time, he should have been used to an audience, but he still was somewhat inhibited in his reactions by those darkly mad eyes staring from the corner; consequently, even when white ribs were showing through the lacerated, bleeding flesh of the woman’s chest, he still felt no pleasant, stirring warmth in his loins. Not until he had leaned the rectangle against a wall and commenced to rain whistling blows on inner thighs and on the pudenda itself did he experience the tardy tumescence.
When he arose from the ravaged body, his loins now slack, he privately suspected the woman to be already dead or so near death as to make no difference, but warily he made no mention of the fact. After adjusting his clothing, the slick, black leather facings all wet and red-sticky, he drew his military dirk and expertly opened the upper abdomen. Leaving the dirk by the body, he stood up and stepped back.
“Dinner is served, my lord.” He addressed the lurker in the shadowy corner. “I’m going above to watch for the patrol, as usual. Please signal when you’ve done, sir.”
On his way up the littered stairs, Danos tried hard not to hear the slurping noises.
Ahlee had lost count of the numbers of small side tunnels his party had explored. Their original torches had already guttered out and, had the practical sergeant not thought to have the reinforcements carry extras, they would all now be fumbling about in utter darkness. The physician’s jaws ached from the effort of keeping them clamped against the chattering of his teeth, for he like the rest found the dank chill of these passages harder to bear than the icy weather aboveground.
They had slowly proceeded up the left-hand side of the large tunnel, come at length to a blank wall of rough-hewn granite which Vaskos had opined to be probably the foundation of part of the city walls. Now they were working back down the other side. As Ahlee, moving just behind Vaskos and the sergeant, came abreast of yet another side tunnel, he became unpleasantly conscious of a palpable emanation of purest evil radiating from the depths of that narrow passage, its uncleanness and power making him sick and dizzy.
“Vaskos!” he whispered, croakingly, pulling at the burly officer’s sleeve. “In there, I think. If not what we seek, at least something… something of terrible wrongness.”
All the still-unblocked side tunnels were very similar in construction—twenty to thirty feet long, about six feet high and three wide—but the differences in this one were quickly apparent. The shoring was all new, the upper areas of it stained with torch soot, and they trod not bare earth but paving tiles … splotched here and there with dark brownish stains which clearly were not soot. A small chamber always lay at the cellar end of these side tunnels. This one contained a pile of fresh torches and a heap of torn and gore-stiffened rags which, on closer examination, proved to all be various articles of women’s clothing.