We had been returned to the quarters of the pit master better then two Ahn ago.
The officer of Treve and the pit master were sitting at the table, playing Kaissa, which is a board game of this world. They were absorbed in the game. I think they were both skilled.
The leader of the strangers paced the floor angrily. His lieutenant was sitting by, cross-legged. Gito was crouched in one corner, his knees drawn up under his chin. He looked about himself, furtively.
Five of the black-tunicked men had perished in or near the cell, two being struck by the chain and stone, two in swordplay, and one apparently thrust though, in the darkness, the peasant exiting from the cell.
Three more, since that time, as was determined from reports arriving at the quarters of the pit master, now the headquarters of the strangers, had perished. One had been pierced by a concealed spear, spring-released from the side of a corridor, another in crossing one of the narrow bridges over a crevice, it buckling as weight was placed at its center, another when an apparently solid portion of the corridor had fallen away beneath him, plunging him screaming, we heard the screams even where we were, into a nest of tiny, active serpents below, serpents called osts. They are, it seems, highly poisonous. The effects of the poison, too, I am told, are not pretty to watch.
In the case of the first man, the pit master had reminded the leader of the strangers that various security devices in the corridors were armed, especially in view of the incursion of the raiders earlier, and reiterated his offer to furnish expert guidance. “You will remain here,” the leader of the strangers had informed him. “As you wish,” said the pit master. In the case of the second man, it seemed that the had neglected to lock two small rods in place, toward the center of the bridge, before sliding it out, into place, without which action, it buckles and turns, as on a hinge. In the third case, the man had apparently not noted the small fanglike sign carved into the wall of the corridor, some two inches above the floor. Accordingly it was not surprising he did not locate the lever which would have secured the trap, disarming it. In both of these cases, too, the pit master’s expressed willingness to be of assistance was spurned.
“An excellent move,” said the officer of Treve, studying the board before him.
“What is the delay!” cried the leader of the strangers. “They should have taken him by now!”
“There are many passages,” said the pit master, looking up. The leader of the strangers spun away from him, in fury. The pit master then returned his attention to the game.
A watch of pit guards, as noted earlier, had been dismissed. A second watch, reporting in but a few minutes ago, had also been dismissed.
Where we were, in the headquarters of the strangers, there were, besides the pit master, the officer of Treve, the leader of the strangers, his lieutenant, Gito, and ourselves, the slaves, three men. The others, originally twelve in number, had been divided into four such parties of three men each.
I knelt by the wall. I was chained there, with the others, the ten of us, the pit slaves. I think they wanted all of us together, where we might, collectively, be easily observed. Too we might then easily be removed from the wall, individually, or together. In any event, the kennels were not in use. The slaves at the wall were normally fastened there by two chains, one on the left ankle, the other on the neck. Now, however, each of us wore but one chain. Mine was on the left ankle. In virtue of this arrangement, that of the single chain, we could be quickly, conveniently, removed from the wall. Our hands were still bound. Food had been thrown to us. We fed as we could.
“Capture of Home Stone,” said the pit master.
“It is the eleventh Ahn,” said a man, looking at the clepsydra.
The leader of the black-tunicked men made a noise of disgust.
His lieutenant was sharpening his sword. Three crossbows, armed, rested on the table.
I lay down by the wall, to rest.
The pit master and the officer of Treve reset the board, for another game. They had played very evenly, as I understood it, first one winning, then the other.
“Your move,” said the pit master.
I pulled a little at my bound wrists. The wonder and terror of this suddenly came to me. How was it that I should be here? I did not even know how I had come to this world! But I was here now, helpless, owned, where I must serve, and please and obey, a slave girl on an alien, exotic world. Who had first seen me, who had marked me out, who had first decided this? Who had speculated how I might look in a collar, who had conjectured my liniments, who had read my body, and my heart?
“The Turian opening?” asked the pit master.
“Perhaps,” said the officer of Treve.
I became suddenly angry. How could they play a game, now, at a time like this?
Sometimes I, and others, had served as prizes in such contests, between guards. Sometimes we must lie to one side, or even under the table, chained hand and foot, waiting to see who would be victorious, to whom we would be awarded for the evening.
“You are intent on the Turian,” said the pit master.
“Perhaps,” said the officer.
I was furious.
I hated the game.
How often I had had to wait for contentment, even such as might be granted to a slave, because of Kaissa! How often I had been uneasy, restless, in my kennel, pressing a tear stained face against the bars, grasping them, they damp from the sweat of my palms. How I would squirm with need, and must wait! Could they not understand my small cries and moans, and then I would be warned to silence, that I not distract them from their foolish game! Then I would crawl back in the kennel, my fists clenched, trying not to cry.
After a time one of the black-tunicked men said, “It is the twelfth Ahn.”
“Vanarik preceded us,” said a man, limping, he whose foot had been twisted in the stirrup of the crossbow, when the peasant had attacked him and the other. His fellow’s head had been almost ripped from his body by the stone on the chain. “Two gates fell, one before, one behind. A panel slid upward. Tharlarion entered the area. Before we could kill them Vanarik was pulled from the gate, he clinging to it, not inches from us.”
“That would be on level two, in passage eighteen,” said the pit master not looking up from the board.
Another of the black-tunicked men died where two passages had intersected. The crossbows had been armed, the men tense. The leader of the strangers, I recalled, had advised them to fire even at a shadow. That shadow had been one of their own men, brought down with three quarrels.
The black-tunicked men had had better fortune in another passage, where five urts had charged them. One of these sleek beasts had been directly killed, by bolts. Two others, wounded, had been turned back. Two others had been, wheeling about amongst them, slashing and biting, destroyed my swords. The men had then pursued the two wounded urts, following a trail of blood, until they had them cornered, quarrels hanging from their flanks, where they slew them, hissing and snarling, against a gate with further quarrels. One of the black-tunicked men had been seriously bitten, and another clawed, but none had perished. The bows had served, in their way, as shields, the urts snapping at them, clinging to them, permitting the defender to draw and hack at their stretched necks with his sword. Sleen would not have made that mistake. They go for warmth and blood.
I found it of interest that so many of the gates in the corridors had not been sealed.
The passages were armed, but they had not been, oddly enough, closed, their gates locked down.
“It is the fifteenth Ahn,” said a man.
Clepsydras are of two sorts, the inflow and outflow varieties. The inflow devices add water to a container and the level in the container measures a unit of time; the outflow devices drain water, the time measured then by the level of water remaining in the vessel. The device in the quarters of the pit master was an outflow device. Its accuracy is controlled by two major factors, its shape and the size of the aperture though which the water drains. It tapers toward the bottom to keep the water pressure constant, that being required to regularize the speed of the flow, a larger amount of water over a larger area exerting a pressure equivalent in its effect to that of a lesser amount over a smaller area. The second major factor is the aperture itself. This is a drilled plug which is periodically replaced. If this were not the case the passage of the water, over time, even in stone, would enlarge the aperture, deregularizing the device.