Again I closed my eyes to the light, strove to thought-seek, to fasten on one of those fear-pricks enough to read the source of that unease. Most of them still swam in and out beyond my catching. I found one near to the very door which guarded my prison, however, or so I thought. And into that I probed with all the effort I could summon.
It was as if I tried to read a fogged tape which was not only overexposed but also composed of alien symbols. Emotion, yes, one could feel that, for basic emotions remain the same from species to species. All living creatures know fear, hate, happiness—though the sources or reasons for these feelings may be very different. And of the common emotions fear and hate are the strongest, the easiest to pick up.
The fear that rode minds here was growing, and intermingled with it was anger. But the anger was weak, much overborne by the fear. Why? What?
My teeth closed upon my underlip, I gave all my remaining strength to the need for discovery. Fear . . . of something . . . someone . . . not present . . . coming? Need . . . need to get rid … rid of me! That breakthrough came so sharply that I straightened as if to meet a physical blow. Yet there was no one there to deliver it. But I knew as well as if it had been shouted aloud that my presence here was the cause of fear. Osokun? No, I did not believe that the lord who had tried to impress his will in this cell had had such a forceful change of attitude.
Prick, prick … I readied my mind, pushed aside amazement, went back to the patient mining of those incomprehensible thoughts. Prisoner—danger— Not my present danger, no—but as a prisoner here I was a danger to the thinker. Perhaps Osokun had so overstepped the laws of Yiktor that those who aided him, or obeyed his orders, had every reason to fear future consequences.
Dared I try a countersuggestion? Fear pushed too far erupts in violence in many men. If I added to that fear in the mind I had tapped and concentrated upon, I might well bring a sword to my own end. I weighed one thing against another while holding the link between us.
What I decided upon was perhaps so thin a chance that it already lay under the shadow of failure. For I attempted to set in that wavery mind-pattern the thought that with the prisoner gone there would be no fear, and that the prisoner must fare forth alive not dead. In the simplest pattern I could devise, and the most emphatic, I sent that thought-beam along the linkage.
At the same time I edged along the wall to the ramp which gave entrance to this place. I stopped only to pick up the jug, drank the remainder of its contents, and then grasped it tightly in my hand. I tried to remember how the door above opened, though my eyes had been dazzled when Osokun had come that way. Outward—surely outward!
Now I was halfway up the ramp, braced, waiting . . .
Free the prisoner … no more fear . . . free the prisoner…
Stronger—he must be moving toward me! Now—the rest would depend upon fortune alone. And when one sets his life on such scales it is a fearsome thing.
I heard the click of metal against metal—the door —I raised the jug— Now!
The door swung back and I threw outward not only the water container but also a blast of fear, directed down the link between mind and mind. I heard a cry from the figure silhouetted against the light. The jug struck against his head and he staggered back.
I scrambled up, putting all my weakening force into that dash, reaching and passing the door. The light was dazzling even in this inner corridor, but the man who had unlocked the door was slumped against the opposite wall, his hands to his face, and between his fingers trickled blood. He was moaning.
My first thought was for his sword. I staggered to him, making his weapon mine. Even to have an unfamiliar weapon in hand bolstered my confidence. He did not fight me. I thought afterward that the blast of fear had struck his mind a far greater and incapacitating blow than the shattered jug had inflicted on his body,
With a roll of shoulder, a thrust of arm, I sent him down into the pit from which I had climbed. He had most thoughtfully left the lock rod still in the door and that I turned swiftly and withdrew to take along.
So much I did before I looked around. The light here, while stinging my dark-orientated eyes, was, I thought, after a moment or two of blinking adjustment, perhaps that of late afternoon. How long I had lain below I did not know, the passing of days and nights had escaped me.
But for the moment, at least, the hall in which I stood was empty. I had made no plans beyond this instant. All I could do was try to reach the open, though I might not have such good fortune in another meeting with any member of the garrison. Mind-seek was too thin to use for scouting. I had tried my esper talent to the full when I had drawn upon it to unlock my cell. What I did now must be accomplished largely by physical means alone, and the weapon I carried was strange to me.
I staggered along the corridor, ever listening for any sound which might herald the coming of another. There was a sharp bend where another narrow window slit gave light. I paused there to look out. Again I saw a small piece of courtyard bounded by a wall. And this showed me a portion of gate, now shut—such a portal as would serve a large party. If that was the only way out of this place, I tasted defeat indeed.
At the jog in the corridor the way turned left. Doors opened along it and for the first time I heard voices. However, there was no other way out save this. With my shoulder against the wall, a bared untried sword in my hand, I began my journey.
The first two doors, recessed in the thickness of the wall, were closed, for which I would have given devout thanks had I been able to spare any relaxation of concentration. Though I knew my esper was at a very low ebb, I tried to use its remnants to feel out any life ahead.
So faint a flickering. I already knew from the sound of voices that there were at least two in one of those rooms, and mind-seek confirmed this. But there could be a dozen more and I would not pick them up now. I shuffled along. The voices grew louder, I could make out separate words, but in another tongue. By the sharpness of the tone I thought they were quarreling.
Brighter light, cutting from a half-open door across the corridor. I halted to study the door. Like that of the cell, it opened outward and it was more than half closed. The lock looked the same as that of the prison, some inner system which was made secure by a rod inserted in a hole and turned. My left hand went to the one I carried. Could it be that the same one might be used successfully here?
First, could the door be entirely closed without arousing those within? I dared not show myself in the open space to see what or who were there. But the voices had reached close to the shouting point, and I hoped they were so engrossed that my next move would go unnoticed.
I put the sword in my belt, took the rod in my right hand. The left I placed palm-flat against the surface of the door and gave it a gentle push. But no such easy touch would work with this ponderous slab, I discovered. It needed shoulder muscles to move it, I Waited tensely for some betraying creak, some lull in the conversation, to tell me that I had made the wrong choice.
Move it did at last, inch by inch, until finally it fitted into its frame. Within the voices continued as I fumbled, my fingers slick with sweat, to push the rod into the hole. It resisted a little and I was ready to leave it. Then it clicked into place and I thrust it up and down as I had seen such rods used before. My faint hope paid off—the rod locked.
From the continued noise within, they had not yet discovered they were prisoners. Twice now I had succeeded, but I must not take too much confidence from that, for such luck was too good to last.