Brushing off the studs, he quickly tapped in the code: 1-3-1-3-2-3-1-2,then grabbed for the notch. The door stayed firm. He tried the code again and still no result.
A glance over his shoulder showed something monstrously huge rising from the pool, looming over him. He tried the sequence again but the door wouldn't budge. He was frantically beating his fist against it when Tlad's words came back to him:
Don't forget to clear.
Jon hit all three buttons at once, tapped in the sequence, and pulled.
It moved.
Dust, dirt, and pebbles powdered him as he dropped his club, thrust both hands into the notch, placed his left foot against the wall, and pulled with desperate strength. He didn't have to look behind now — moist air from the formless behemoth's cold wet surface was wafting around him as it reared over him.
The door suddenly jerked open and he fell back against something cold and soft and slimy, then he catapulted himself into the opening, pulling the door behind him. It closed only half way. Fallen debris was jamming it open. The creature outside, however, solved the problem for him by lumbering against the door and forcing it closed with its weight.
The room seemed to sense Jon's presence. Panels in the ceiling began to glow, adding to the luminescence in the walls. Jon tried to gather his wits. Innumerable crates lined the walls and stood in long rows before him. Where to begin?
After a brief rest — this was the first time since leaving Tlad that he felt safe enough to let down his guard — he started with the pile on his left and moved along the wall, tearing open the crates with his hands. Some held books, others drawings and pictures, but most of the contents were totally incomprehensible to him. More things he didn't understand.
So many things he didn't understand.
Tlad was one. Why did he trust that man? He had lied to everyone he’d met here. Tlad wasn't his real name… he did not come from the coast…he was not a potter.
Why trust a liar?
Tlad had spent days talking to Jon, trying to explain where he came from and why he was here. All Jon could glean from the monologues was that he came from far away and wanted to help the Talents and all other teries.
Why? Did he have reasons he wasn't telling? Had he lied to Jon about his intentions as he had lied about his name?
But Tlad had talked to Jon, treated him as a man, truly seemed to think of him as one. Because of that, Jon would do almost anything for Tlad…even aid him in deceiving Rab and the Talents by destroying the weapons instead of bringing them back.
Tlad said it was for the best and Jon believed him.
Eventually he found the bombs. Crates of them, all neatly stacked against a walclass="underline" egg shaped as Tlad had said, with a smooth, shiny surface.
These could kill? These could destroy the Hole and Mekk's fortress as well? It did not seem possible. But he had trusted Tlad this far…
He needed only one. He cupped this in his palm and returned to the door. Pressing his ear against its smooth metal surface he listened for signs of activity outside. All quiet. The door moved easily at his touch and he stepped back as it swung outward. Nothing but the narrow path and a smooth expanse of water awaited.
The inhabitant of the lake was gone.
The lights in the cache room dimmed slowly as he exited and were fully extinguished by the time the door clicked shut behind him. He looked down and saw his club where he had dropped it. It was covered with slime — everything was covered with slime. Wiping the handle of the weapon clean against the fur on his leg, he followed the slime trail along the edge of the pool and noted that it wandered off into the passage he had planned on taking back to Tlad.
He changed his plans. Despite the fact that the path in question was the one that had brought him here and the only one he knew, and despite the fact that his greatest fear in the Hole was to become lost, he decided to take another route.
He would trust his sense of direction on a strange path more than he would trust his club against the dark behemoth from the pool.
The new passage was not very much different from the other and he made good time, loping along on his hind legs with the bomb cradled in his left hand against his chest, his club swinging back and forth in his right.
Then trouble.
Rounding a bend in the passage he ran into a pack of nine or ten spider-things.
Without hesitation they were on him with howls of fury, their clawed arms raking at him, their sharp teeth in their all-too-human faces snapping at him. Jon shook them off and backed away, swinging his club sparingly but with telling effect, always keeping it menacingly before him.
After the initial assault, the gang kept its distance, trying to flank him or work one of its members behind him. Jon kept backpedaling, holding them before him, wondering how long he could keep this up.
Suddenly he felt stone against his back and nowhere to go. He had allowed them to corral him into a dead-end branch of the passage. His gut writhed as he glanced around. They had him boxed in. He was trapped.
He looked up and saw the dark mouth of a small cave just out of reach above him. He could climb there easily, but it would mean turning his back on the gang of spider-things, and he didn't dare do that.
Then they attacked in earnest — a suicide charge on three levels with some leaping for his legs, others for his arms, and others for his head. Whirling and swinging his club, kicking when opportunity presented, Jon managed to hold them off for a moment or two, then one of them sank his teeth into his leg.
Jon twisted and lost his balance. He went down on one knee. As the gang swarmed over him, their teeth and claws tearing at him, their loathsome black bodies pressing against him, Jon felt himself start to fall onto his back. He dropped his club and raised his right arm for balance, searching for support, anything to keep him upright. For if they got him down on the ground –
Powerful fingers closed about his wrist.
With a force that threatened to pull his arm from its socket, he was lifted partly free of his attackers. He kicked them off as he was hauled into the air and unceremoniously dumped into the cave above. He whirled, ready to face a threat worse than that below, and was startled to see the mother monster he had aided earlier.
She hissed and pushed him behind her, then returned her attention to the furious spider gang below. As they swarmed up the wall, she sat back and waited. As soon as one poked its head inside the cave mouth, she punched at it with one of her huge fists. Her arms worked like battering rams. She seemed to be enjoying herself.
Jon would have helped her but he had lost his club. With a spasm of shock he realized he’d lost the egg as well. He must have dropped it during the melee. He’d have to go back to the cache for another. He shuddered at the prospect. But he’d worry about that later. Right now he needed a weapon.
As he looked around for something else to use against the attackers, he came across the corpse of one of the spider-things slain earlier. The mother's young were clustered around it, nibbling.
Jon noticed a shaft of light toward the rear of the cave. Curious, he stepped over the younglings’ grisly feast and went to investigate. The tunnel curved sharply upward but the light ahead proved an irresistible lure. He climbed swiftly.
He found a break slightly smaller than his head in the back wall of the cave. Light poured through it — not the sickly phosphorescent glow that permeated the Hole, but a brighter, cleaner, familiar light.
Sunlight.
Jon put his face to the opening and peered through. He found he was looking into a large vertical shaft with sheer, smooth, unblemished walls. From above where the sunlight filtered down, a gong clanged and a man began screaming. By leaning his shoulder against the wall, he found he could twist his neck and see to the top of the shaft. A heavy iron grate covered the opening. Above that was blue sky and a ring of humans.