Dominion, Fred Saberhagen [uplifting book club books TXT] 📗

through the few inches of play given it by the chain, creating a small aperture through which his adult body could never be made to pass. Then he decided on a more subtle way than breakage.

   “Pass me the tool kit, Marge.” Escape work, opening locks, was not his strongest act. But he had dabbled.

   Margie dug into her shoulder bag and pulled out the packet of folded cloth, the size of a billfold. It opened to show pockets filled with a jeweler’s or an escape artist’s, selection of instruments. Simon selected a small pick and went to work. The lock didn’t look terribly expensive or difficult.

   Meanwhile Margie retreated to stand just inside the mouth of the grotto, on watch, looking out and listening. Once she turned to ask him in a whisper: “Did you hear something?”

   He paused, ready to be irritated at the interruption, but still believing that she would not have interrupted him for any commonplace sound. He listened, but could hear nothing out of the ordinary. “Maybe a bird?” he suggested.  “Some animal in the woods?”

   Margie shrugged. Simon went back to work. The cheap lock gave up after only a couple of minutes, unrusted parts of its shackle sliding into view. With a mutter of triumph he undid the chain and set it down; and now, with a minimum of skreeking, the jail door could be swung open. A few spider webs tore soundlessly. Inside lay blown dust and dead leaves, untrodden.

   When Margie had got herself wedged into the cave mouth with him, he closed the door again behind them both, and re-wrapped the chain as convincingly as possible. He secured its links with the lock, which he almost closed.  “Now,” he said.

   Margie had already repacked the tool kit, and now had a tiny flashlight ready. With this in hand Simon led the way into the cave. It was a way along which progress at first looked hopeless; it seemed that you must run into a wall before you had gone more than the length of your body. But around the first corner the light already shone into deep blackness, showing where a small natural crevice had been carved wider. Simon went down on all fours and inched and scraped his way ahead, with Marge groping at his, heels. He slid down, deeper into the hillside. A moment later they could both stand up.

   “Wow,” whispered Margie.  “I’m starting to believe your story.”

   The passage was too narrow for more than one person at a time, but adequately high. From here it snaked slowly upward through the hill, presumably following some path of least resistance through the rock. It darkened briefly to almost pitch blackness, then brightened again somewhat as they approached the outlet of an air-and-light shaft that pierced the solid stone roof ahead. The outlet of the vent at or above ground level was obviously very well concealed in some way; Simon had never had an opportunity to try to learn where or how. The last time he’d come this way, he hadn’t had a flashlight with him; he could recall groping and stumbling; and he told himself now that those memories at least had to be real enough.

   The secret way did not continue underground for very long. After fifteen yards or so, and one more small vent for light and air, they reached a steep, short flight of stairs, cut out of the native limestone just like the rest of the passage. Then, when they had climbed about ten steps, walls and stair alike became construction instead of carving. The passage had brought them up within the main castle walls themselves, twelve feet in thickness at the base.

   Here the way was as narrow as before, and still quite dim. The air was fresh-smelling, but considerably cooler than outdoors. Unexpectedly, a branching passage appeared, twisting away to one side and again downward; Simon remembered the branch but hadn’t explored it before, and wasn’t going to check it out just now; maybe a little later, if everything else went well.

   Another stair. At its top, natural light, dim but adequate for movement, was coming in through one side of the passage. Simon flicked off the penlight and gestured Margie to silence. At the top of the stair they stood together, looking out. On this side of the passage a deep niche built into the stone wall terminated in an actual window, covered with a thick wood screen through which only a few small holes remained open. Heads side by side in the recess, they each put eye to hole and found themselves looking out into what Simon remembered as the great hall of the castle. It was certainly a vast chamber, whose size was difficult to estimate in this constricted view; but from this strategically placed spyhole almost all of it was visible. In the enormous fireplace a huge spit turned, and the smell of roasting meat confirmed that some sizable animal was indeed being roasted whole. A long, crude trestle table, the chief article of furniture, was dwarfed by the size of the room around it. At the moment no people were in sight; the spit was being turned electrically, a cord from a small motor running to an outlet in the gray stone wall, as incongruous as it was inconspicuous.

   Simon turned his head, putting lips to Margie’s ear. “This panel should open from in here if you push it. This is where you’ll come out. Think you can squeeze through?”

   She pulled back, looked at the dimensions of the window in the stone.  “A little tight. I can manage, though, if it doesn’t tear the damn gauzy costume off. How far down is the floor out there?”

   Simon looked again, estimated.  “I think just about the same as the surface we’re standing on in here. I’ll look it over from the other side, tonight, before I give you the final signal at dinner. Okay?”

   “Okay. I’ll