Roane caught at the Princess’s hand as she switched off the beamer. If the men were coming for their captive, there was little they could do in their own defense. Back in camp were stunners; Roane longed for one now. But those had not been unpacked, since they had no need to fear any forest animal with the distorts on. And those of the team were well aware they were not to be turned against any native here unless in the very last recourse. She had the knife—which the Princess still held—and the tool she had used to break the chain, nothing else.
Hand-linked, they stood very still to listen. The room had grown lighter. Perhaps they would not need the beamer. Roane drew the Princess to the head of the bed and behind it. The sooner they proved whether or not the holes led to freedom, the better. “Climb!” She shoved Ludorica ahead of her and hoped the Princess could do just that. As the other faced the wall, raised her hands to the niches, Roane crouched so she could watch the top of the stair. It was too bad that they could not bar that way—say, shift the chest across it. But one good look at that told her that such a feat was impossible.
It seemed that the Princess’s breathing, the faint scratching of her fingers and toes (for she was barefoot), were very loud. Roane strained to catch any answering sound from below.
The Princess was now well above the level of the headboard, straining to reach the shadowy crisscross of the upper beams. Roane started after her. It was, she decided, about equal to climbing a steep slope, save that she took each lift with the fear of at any moment being caught. Her breath rasped harshly in her own ears and she tried to control that fear, thinking not of what might happen but of what she must do in the next moment and the next.
“There is a place of flooring here,” the Princess called down in a whisper, “and, I think, a door. This must be an overreach—” What the other might mean, Roane had no idea, but she was heartened to know that her companion seemed to recognize something well known to her. Then Roane’s hand, reaching for the next niche, scraped a solid surface and she pulled herself out on a platform laid across the junction of two beams.
“There is a door to the roof. I have drawn its bolt,” the Princess told her. “But it may take us both to lift it. It must be a very long time since this was last opened.”
They crouched shoulder to shoulder on their knees, their four hands flat over their heads against a wooden surface. The dry dust they so raised sifted into Roane’s face and hair, but she closed her eyes to it and said— “Now!”
At first it seemed that that barrier had been firmly cemented by time. Then there was a giving which led to a greater exercise of strength. A crack of light grew wide, as they strained. And, as if some further fastening gave way, the door lifted with a rush. Fresh, rain-wet air blew in upon them.
Roane drew herself up and out, turning to lend a hand to the Princess, who was making an effort to follow. They were on the roof of the tower in the full open. Around them ran a waist-high parapet. And it was day, though the rain clouds hung heavy above. Roane dropped the door into place. That they had bettered their case much was doubtful. Unless they could stay here in biding until the men below left—which she thought was a very slim chance.
But the Princess was crawling on hands and knees around the parapet, stopping now and then to run her hands over its surface, almost as if she were in search of something she was sure she would eventually find. Even as Roane watched she paused and her finger tips outlined a space first on the parapet and then on the surface under it.
“We are favored by fortune,” she said. “There is indeed an overreach here.”
Roane went to look over the parapet. Some distance away the edge of the cliff backing the tower jutted out The girl tried to measure the distance between that and the tower. But it was too far to hope for a crossing—lacking a jump belt of her own civilization. Yet the Princess was now brushing at the roof, sweeping away the debris left by years of wind sowing.
“Ah-here!”
She had crawled some distance back from the parapet, and now she dug away at what seemed to Roane an ordinary crack between those slabs of stone which made up the roof. “Your knife —give it to me! This must be loosed.”
Again Roane believed that Ludorica knew what she was about. She passed over the blade, nor did she voice the protest she felt when the Princess rammed its point into the crack.
Small rolls of black were gouged out, the Princess smear- ing them away with her hand. Now Roane could see that the break was much wider than it had first looked, so that a few minutes’ work cleared a recess wide enough for Ludorica to get her fingers into. She motioned impatiently to Roane—
“Move back—over there. This may take some time; the packing is very old. But these were meant for escape means during the first Nimp invasions and I have never seen one yet which would not answer. Though I must find the lock stone.”
She moved her hand back and forth, manifestly working her fingers within the crack. Then, even as the trap door had given, there was a thin grating sound and the stone block moved, sliding as a drawer toward the parapet. A whole section of that, as wide as the moving slab, sank out and forward as if on invisible hinges.
“Help me—” the Princess panted.
Roane scrambled to the opposite side of the slab, pushed at it. It slid on and on, passing out over the now horizontally leveled section of parapet to form a narrow bridge which did not quite touch that rocky spur beyond but came close to closing the gap. The Princess sat back on her heels, panting with effort, her dirty face flushed. “We must be quick; these do not hold long—” Roane did not try to take that narrow path on her feet but crawled on hands and knees, and was careful to keep her eyes to the tongue of stone which she must traverse. There was a giddy sensation in her head. She had never been fond of heights, though she had fought that fear through the wandering years of her Me. This was the worst test she had yet faced.
She reached the end of the slab. There was still open space between its end and the ledge. She jumped, landing heavily on the stone. Then she stood ready, holding out her hands, to aid the Princess.
It was lucky that she did, for just as Roane took firm grip of the wrists the other girl held out to her, the stone tongue trembled, moved, backed toward the tower. She was just in time to jerk Ludorica to safety. The slab rolled into place, the parapet rose, and their bridge was gone. “
“Now—for Yatton—” The Princess was trying to order the remnants of her robe. She took a step and then gave a sharp exclamation holding up a bare foot to brush at its sole.
Roane thought of her own plans—to aid the Princess and then fade away into the woods, leaving the other to go where she chose. Now she discovered that she could not desert her companion. The rain was chill and the Princess was barefoot. How long would it be before those men in the tower found their captive gone? And then—how long before they ran her down again?
“Where is this Yatton of yours?” Roane demanded impatiently. The only alternative would be to take the Princess back to camp, and she could foresee only outright disaster in that. Either way she was in deeper trouble with every passing moment
Two leagues—nearer three.” The Princess raised her other foot to brush at it. “To speak the truth, I do not believe I can walk that without shoes. It would seem my feet are too tender for such wayfaring.”
“We cannot be too far now from Hitherhow.”
The Princess, having brushed her feet, was now busied in coiling the collar chain about her slender shoulders in a strange and ugly necklace. “I do not return to Hitherhow—not until I am sure—”
“Sure of what?”
“Of how I could be lifted from my bed there so easily with no guard’s hand raised to prevent it.” She eyed Roane bleakly, and then her eyes focused on the off-world girl far more search-ingly.