This had no kinship with the compulsion that had kept him in the Atlantean port-this, he was sure, was of the enemy. But it was also something he could not easily fight.
All right–he would get out of here. Or else-Ray licked his lips-if the pressure continued to build, he would simply stand there shrieking his identity aloud to these four walls until his enemies appeared to collect him.
Move in obedience to that order-by yielding so much, he might still retain something of his own will. And as long as he had even a fraction of that, he would keep fighting, dodging, running! If he only knew why he had been left here, then he might have both a purpose and a reason to stand firm.
The sailmaker’s shop Captain Taut had mentioned, should he head for that? He had no reason at all to believe in the good will of the raider captain. Still it was all he had-a shadow of help.
He turned suddenly, and his hand went to his side. The wound there was tender enough to make him wince. He had inspected it again in the privacy of this room. It had crusted over, and if it were clean, healing had already begun.
Ray went to the window again and studied the runway one story below. When he leaned out as far as he dared without overbalancing, he could see that to his left, at the front of the tavern, there was no opening to the outer street, only a high boarding making a dead end. The other way-yes, there was perhaps an exit there. (quickly he stripped the top cover-and the only one, he discovered-from the bed, making its end fast to the leg of the supporting frame. It did not give a very long rope, but enough to provide him with a safer landing. Then he was through the window, swinging over the debris. Ray let go and fell as he had been taught to tumble to save himself from hurt. Only such lessons had never been practiced with a view to landing in a dump.
Crashing through a top layer of refuse, the American struck less fragile material with bruising force. For a moment or two he lay in the mess, pain shooting along his side, fearing almost to move lest he discover a broken bone.
Finally, because that feeling of being hunted was so strong, Ray clawed his way up and out of the debris. With one hand against the wall for support over the entrapping footing, he began a careful journey toward the rear of the tavern. If the crash of his landing had alarmed any inhabitant of the other upper rooms, apparently it had not led them to investigate.
The narrow slit reached the end of the building, but still a high fence of rotting boards walled him in on the right. To the left the windowless wall of the other structure continued. The, wood of the fence was dry and powdery, and Ray thought he could kick a way through
it, but there was -no need for such drastic methods of escape as yet.
He struggled on through the noisome swamp of the refuse and finally came to a right angle of the fence meant to bottle up the slit. As he went, the need for freedom, for space in which to run, had so worked in him that, as he fronted that barrier, caution was burned away and he kicked and tore at the disintegrating wood, breaking his way out into an alley much the same as that in which he had met the thief.
Shaking off as much as he could of the filth left by his trip down the slit, Ray looked right and left, uncertain as to which might promise a small measure of safety, if any safety was to be found in this maze of dockside warrens.
If he had not totally lost his sense of direction, then the sail shop lay to the left. Well ahead a figure was busied, poking through the refuse, turning over nasty piles of litter with a long stick, now and then pouncing upon some bit it transferred to a bag it dragged behind. All Ray could see was stick-thin bare arms protruding from a huddle of rags so old and grimed that they had lost all color. The closer he approached the scavenger, the less human it seemed. But when he was perhaps the length of its search stick away, it moved with a speed he would not have thought possible for such a walking skeleton, swinging that same stick around to trip him up, while from the swathing of rags hooding its head came a shrill cackling.
Again trained reflexes saved Ray as he dodged that tripping stick. And the scavenger, apparently overbalanced when his weapon did not connect with Ray’s shins as planned, went tottering on a step or two, pulled by the very force of the intended blow.
“Yahhhh!” First failure was not deterring the assailant from another try. But Ray could not bring himself to close with the creature. This was not as human as the thief, rather something that had slid so far down from the human that it was loathsome.
He kicked the bag it had been using to store its harvest and dodged again. Swinging the stick, it tottered on, tripping upon the bag, and fell with a shrill wail. Ray ran. His breath was coming in sharp gasps when he reached the end of the alley. The way was. narrow, hardly wider than his outstretched arms, and it gave upon a street that was much in use. Heavy wagons moved there, going to the dock laden, returning empty. Men in uniform drove those wagons, and some had guards riding on them as well. Ray leaned against the wall, in what he hoped was inconspicuous shadow, to watch, at first incuriously, as he got back his wind, then with some attention. War supplies was his guess, being loaded on the ships of the fleet. Preparations for an all-out attempt against either Mayax or Mu. Surely they would have to deal with Mayax before they took—Or tried to take-Mu. But how did Chronos hope to engage all the rest of the world in open war unless there was a way of reaching Mu by sailing east instead of west? He had never seen a complete map of this world. What about Africa? Did that continent exist in this age, and if so, who held it? Too bad he knew so little that was helpful. But possible geographical changes slipped from his mind. He might have left the tavern room, escaped the attack of the scavenger, but he had not lost that sense of being under surveillance, and it acted now as a spur to keep him moving. Any extraordinary behavior here would certainly alert the guards on the drays. Ray began to walk along, hugging the walls of the buildings to his left, heading back to the harbor. If-if whatever will kept him here wanted him back in the city, perhaps these wagons might be the answer to such a return. He tried to examine them without betraying too much interest, searching for any way of hiding on one of the returning ones. According to his cursory inspection, there was no chance of that-not in broad daylight, anyway. Ray reached the end of the cross street and faced the wide
thoroughfare forming the spine from which the docks made one-sided ribs. He crossed the line of carts as they drew up for a wait, making himself walk at an even pace, fighting against hunching his shoulders under the eyes of the drivers and guards, expecting any moment to hear a cry raised, feel steel bite at him. His trip through the alley had brought him well along the harbor. Now he was near the western end and began to watch for the sailmaker’s shop or the wine booth that would identify it. “Stop!” It was an instant or two before Ray realized that command had not been heard by his ear but rang in his head. And with it came a pressure for obedience. “Come!” He had stopped, yes. The sheer surprise had brought him to a halt, so suddenly that a man ran into him and turned with a snarl to demand, in argot Ray could barely understand, what he thought he was doing. “Come!” Again that calm assumption that he would obey, that he had no recourse, but to answer that call. He turned away from the scowling Atlantean. There was no help; he had to answer that imperious summons. But it was not from the will that had kept him here. And as he obeyed it against all his desires, he knew that that other shrank, dwindled-as if the two pressures could not exist together within him. “Come!” Come where? His conscious mind might not know that, but whatever now controlled his body seemed to be sure. He walked east, not at any hurried pace but steadily as he had done before. And he could not break the hold that kept him going one step after another. The docks were crowded, and Ray threaded a way among men, wagons, beasts of burden. He passed the tavern from which he had fled only a little while ago, went on arid on-There was a flow of brilliant color here-the tunics of men, the bright blankets and panniers of the animals -but Ray became aware of a spot of red that seemed to glow with some inner fire. And it waited-for him. He was imprisoned in a cell of flesh and bone that moved to the command of what also animated that red pillar there-No, not a pillar, but a robe-a robe of a deep blood shade, and wearing it, someone who was more than a mere man.