James Axler – Bitter Fruit

“Counterweights?” Doc asked.

“Yes,” Cardamom answered, taking up a torch from where it hung on the wall just inside the small entryway.

Ryan followed the old man down into the tunnel. It went on much farther than he’d guessed. “Surprised you didn’t hit water,” he stated. After J.B. brought up the rear, the old man’s wife shut the door behind them. It locked with a dry click.

“In some places,” Cardamom assured him, “we did. A few of them we were able to shore up with rock and keep dry. But it wasn’t possible with others.”

At least twenty feet below the surface, the winding staircase came to a fairly level point. Cardamom kept the torch ahead of him, not having room to raise it above his head.

The trapped smoke burned Ryan’s eye and caused it to tear. He kept his hand on his blaster. It was a bad place to be if the sec men came across them. A little plas ex in the right places, and they might as well have crawled into their own graves.

“Boldt doesn’t know about these tunnels?” Krysty asked.

“No. We keep our secrets. They’re all we have left these days.”

“If Boldt has only been around for the last forty years,” Doc asked, “how is it you’re so old?”

“My wife and I were both among the original clones that were accelerated past our childhoods and adolescence.”

“You missed some very magic times, friend Cardamom,” Doc said.

“We thought we’d stolen some of it back when we had a child of our own twelve years ago,” the old man said. “He was one of the children ferreted out by Boldt’s spies. He wasn’t quite two years old when the Prince discovered his existencealong with the existence of other childrenand had him drowned publicly by his raid people. Their bodies were given to the beasts that haunt the forests beyond our border.”

“I am truly sorry,” Doc said.

Ryan studied the men waiting on their arrival. None of them appeared happy about the meeting.

“We were not so united in our purpose in those days,” Cardamom said. “Some of us would have died for our children. But we were not allowed. Our own friends and neighbors guarded Boldt from our rage and need for vengeance because they feared he would turn on all of us. In spite of the deaths of the children, they felt him capable of mercy.”

A man easily fifty pounds heavier than Ryan and a couple inches taller was evidently the spokesman for the trio. His tangled auburn hair was streaked with silver, as was the fierce beard that hung down to his chest.

“Cardamom,” the big man rumbled, “what is the meaning of this?”

“Forgive his rude and abrupt manner,” Cardamom said. “These past years have made us all lax in our social graces.” He set the torch into a sconce near a flue built into the ceiling. “Basil, this is Ryan Cawdor and his companions. They’re here to free the woman.”

“Her name is Mildred,” Ryan said. Giving the other rebels the woman’s name would perhaps put them at ease, let them know Mildred meant something to the band. He introduced the others briefly.

The other two men with Basil were Sage and Marjoram.

“Why should we trust you?” the big man grunted. His eyes were narrow slits.

“If we were here to hurt you or just find out about these tunnels,” Ryan stated, “it’d already be done. Us finding these tunnels, not much could be worse. You think it would take Peppereven as stupe as he lookslong to figure out all he’d have to do to find the main part of the rebellion effort was to track down these tunnels and kill whoever he found at the other end?”

Basil looked at the other two men, then at Cardamom.

“And I don’t see us keeping quiet for the moment to mean we’re afraid of you. Besides being outnumbered six to four, you boys brought knives to a gunfightif it come to that sudden-like.”

Basil crossed his hands over his broad chest. “What do you want from us?”

Ryan hooked a thumb at Tarragon. “Boy seems to think you people have a back way into the Prince’s fortress. I want to know where it is. If you’re up to it, and mebbe you got a few friends, could be we can put a raiding party together while we’re at it.”