Kickaha, ahead of him, said, “Come on, Bob!” His voice was so excited that Wolff knew he must have located Chryseis. He climbed swiftly, more swiftly than good sense permitted. It was necessary to climb to one side of the projection, for its underside angled outward. Kickaha was lying on the flat top of the bartizan and just in the act of pulling himself back from its edge. “You have to hang upside down to look in the window, Bob. She’s there, and she’s alone. But the window’s too narrow for either of you to go through.”
Wolff slid out over the edge of the projection while Kickaha grabbed his legs. He went out and over, the black moat below, and bent down until he would have fallen if his legs had not been held. The slit in the stone showed him the face of Chryseis, inverted. She was smiling but tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Afterward, he did not exactly remember what they said to each other, for he was in a fever of exaltation, succeeded by a chill of frustration and despair, then followed by another fever. He felt as if he could talk forever, and he reached his hand out to touch hers. She strained against the opening in the rock in vain to reach him. “Never mind, Chryseis,” he said. “You know we’re here. We’re not going to leave until we take you away, I swear it.”
“Ask her where the horn is!” Kickaha said.
Hearing him, Chryseis said, “I do not know, but I think that von Elgers has it.”
“Has he bothered you?” Wolff asked savagely.
“Not so far, but I do not know how long it will be before he takes me to bed,” she replied. “He’s restrained himself only because he does not want to lower the price he’ll get for me. He says he’s never seen a woman like me.”
Wolff swore, then laughed. It was like her to talk thus frankly, for in the Garden world self-admiration was an accepted attitude.
“Cut out the unnecessary chatter,” Kickaha said. “There’ll be time for that if we get her out.”
Chryseis answered Wolff’s questions as concisely and clearly as possible. She described the route to this room. She did not know how many guards were stationed outside her door or on the way up.
“I do know one thing that the baron does not,” she said. “He thinks that Abiru is taking me to von Kranzelkracht. I know better. Abiru means to ascend the Doozvillnava to Atlantis. There he will sell me to the Rhadamanthus.”
“He won’t sell you to anybody, because I’m going to kill him,” Wolff said. “I have to go now, Chryseis, but I’ll be back as soon as possible. And I won’t be coming this way. Until then, I love you.”
Chryseis cried, “I have not heard a man tell me that for a thousand years! Oh, Robert Wolff, I love you! But I am afraid! I …”
“You don’t have to be afraid of anything,” he said. “Not while I am alive, and I don’t intend to die.”
He gave the word for Kickaha to drag him back onto the rooftop of the bartizan. He rose and almost fell over from dizziness, for his head was gorged with blood.
“The Yidshe has already started down,” Kickaha said. “I sent him to find out if we can get back the
way we came and also to see what’s causing the uproar.”
“Us?”
“I don’t think so. The first thing they’d do, they’d check on Chryseis. Which they haven’t done.”
The descent was even slower and more dangerous than the climb up, but they made it without mishap. Funem Laksfalk was waiting for them by the window which had given them access to the outside.
“They’ve found the guard you killed,” he said. “But they don’t think we had anything to do with it. The gworl broke loose from the dungeon and killed a number of men. They also seized their own weapons. Some got outside but not all.”
The three left the room and merged quickly with the searchers. They had no chance to go up the flight of steps at the end of which was the room where Chryseis was imprisoned. Without a doubt, von Elgers would have made sure that the guards were increased.