Appalled, Garth explored further. It was as he gazed sadly at a child, petrified while clutching a doll that had remained untransformed, that he heard a noise.
He froze. Again he heard it. The sound was in the street outside, and approaching. Moving as quietly as he knew how, Garth crossed to the nearest window; he was still on the ground floor. He peered cautiously out, and to his astonishment saw a man approaching; the astonishment was not so much that a man was walking the streets of Mormoreth, but that Garth recognized him. It was Dansin, the bandit.
Seeing in the bandit leader as good a source of information as he was likely to find, Garth sprang through the window, scattering shattered glass across the street. Before Dansin could do anything but start in surprise at the noise, he found the overman's drawn sword at his throat.
"Man, I would know where to find an entrance to the crypts."
Dansin stammered, "What crypts?" His hand crept toward his vest, but Garth moved faster, and drew forth an intricately carved wooden rod, perhaps an inch in diameter and a foot long.
"I take it this is the device you used to imprison me at our last encounter. How does it work?"
"I...you swore not to harm me."
"I swore I would not kill you; nor shall I. However, should you refuse me, you will lose your right hand at the wrist. I want two things: the location of the crypt entrance, and the means of using this talisman."
"I know nothing of any crypt, I swear by the Fifteenl"
"You do know how to use this rod."
"Yes."
"Then explain it."
With much hesitation, the bandit did so; it was worked by pressing various of its carved surfaces in certain sequences. Garth kept Dansin within reach while he tested this information, and was gratified to find it accurate.
"Very good, thief. Now, why are you in Mormoreth?"
"I came to warn Shang of our defeat and your approach."
"How did he respond to your warning?"
"He laughed; he said he would meet you at the gate, and permitted me to stay, so that you would not meet me on the road. Then but an hour ago he returned to the palace in a rage and ordered me thence."
"Very well, then; you may go your way." Garth sheathed his sword, and in an instant Dansin was fleeing toward the gate as if pursued by demons.
Garth watched him go, then turned his own steps in the opposite direction. He had now been reminded that Shang dwelt in the palace. Further, Shang had admitted that he derived much of his magic from the presence of the basilisk. Therefore, it seemed likely that there was an entrance to the catacombs somewhere in or near this palace. If the palace in question were the only one in the city, which it appeared to be from the manner in which it was referred to, then in all likelihood it lay in the center of the city, there being no high ground in this flat-bottomed valley. Thus, Garth headed for the center of the city.
He called for his beast, and Koros appeared from the alley in which Garth had left him. Leading the monster, he strolled on at a casual pace, mulling over possible plans for invading the palace without again confronting Shang.
CHAPTER FIVE
Before he had gone very far, Garth sighted his objective. The street he was on was very nearly straight, an oddity in human cities, with only a single curve in it perhaps a mile from the gate. After rounding this bend, the overman found himself looking down a broad avenue that opened into a large square. On the far side of the square, its door directly in line with Garth's gaze, was a large and well-made structure some three stories in height, built of gleaming white stone, like most of Mormoreth, and which was plainly the palace that Shang had appropriated. It was still perhaps a quarter mile distant. Garth paused to consider his approach. It was clearly impossible to attempt any kind of stealth with Koros in tow, so he led the beast into a convenient forecourt, out of sight of the square, and tied it loosely to a hitching post; he was well aware that the rope would scarcely begin to restrain the monster if it wanted to leave, but it would serve to reinforce his verbal instruction to stay. He could only hope and trust that he would be back before Koros got hungry enough to disobey him.
Leaving it standing there placidly, still saddled and loaded in case a rapid departure was necessary, he gathered what he thought he might need and proceeded as quietly as he could down the shadowy side of the avenue. His supplies consisted of his broadsword, his dirk, his battle-axe, and a sack containing ropes, chains, hooks, and two shaving mirrors appropriated from dead bandits after his first encounter with Elmil's band, in addition to the two magical talismans he had acquired and such staples as purse, canteen, and a wallet of provisions. In his belt were flint and steel as well as a prepared torch.
Reaching the corner where the avenue met the square, Garth looked about. The open area was clearly a marketplace, with taverns and inns standing dark and vacant on all sides, the canopies and tents of various merchants scattered in the dust before him. It was a good fifty yards square, perhaps more. The dusty and disarrayed awnings and such numbered in the dozens.
Almost the entire opposite side was occupied by a single building: the palace, glistening white marble that remained spotless despite the city's current depopulated condition. It had a single great door in the middle of its faзade, a gem-encrusted expanse of beaten gold at the top of three steps of some rich red stone; the ground floor had no windows or ornaments except this portal, set in the smooth, blank marble.
Upper stories were another matter; half a dozen evenly spaced slits served as windows for the second floor, while the third had a dozen broad casements of elaborately leaded glass. The gently sloping roof was edged with innumerable gargoyles, carved of the same white marble as the walls.
Garth studied the situation. Shang was in there somewhere, presumably, but the structure was large enough that most of its interior would undoubtedly be out of sight and sound of the door. Unless the wizard were lying in wait for him, the odds were he could simply walk in the front door unnoticed-unless there were some sort of alarm. If there were, he would hear it, and could simply turn around and walk out again.
Although the boldest course, this was also the simplest, and therefore most likely the best; he had no way of knowing where in the palace he might encounter the wizard, so one point of entry was as good as another, making it foolish to risk climbing in windows where he could easily slip and break his neck.
His course of action decided, Garth strode across the square, dodging the collapsed tents. The sun, setting somewhere over his right shoulder, glittered redly on the gems that studded the palace door. Marching up the three steps, he grasped the handle and pushed; nothing happened. He pushed harder; the door still refused to yield. He could see no sign of lock or bar, yet it gave no more than would a mountainside; either the palace had been designed to withstand a siege or there was sorcery at work here. In either case, Garth did not care to press the issue. He considered trying to cut through the door with his axe as he had the city gate, but he rejected the idea. If anything would annoy Shang, the ruination of his front door would. Furthermore, the noise attendant upon such a proceeding would be vastly greater than that of his intended surreptitious entry, so that even if the wizard were in the far corner of the palace he might hear it.
Therefore another entrance must be found. Garth descended the red stone steps and turned right, to make a circuit of the building. This led him through a rather malodorous alleyway perhaps six feet in width, where he found the south face of the palace to be as totally blank and featureless on all three floors as the front was on the first. Then, some forty yards along, he found himself in a broader, more wholesome street at right angles to the alleyway. The back of the palace, he saw, had the same casements and gargoyles at top, the same slits on the second floor, the same smooth faзade at ground level, save that where the golden door was in the front, the back had a large arch, perhaps fifteen feet wide and a dozen high, filled with an oaken gate.
A brief attempt showed that this barrier was as solidly closed as was the golden portal, if not more so, and the arguments against hacking it down still held; so Garth continued to the northern face, into an alleyway of perhaps eight-foot width, which was almost black in the gathering twilight. Here the palace was again utterly blank and featureless.
Emerging once more into the market-square, Garth realized that daylight was fading rapidly and that he could not afford to waste much more time if he wanted to be able to see what he was doing; therefore he discarded his consideration of such possibilities as concealed doorways, lock-picking, tunnels from adjacent buildings, and other unlikely means of ingress, and set his mind to reaching the third-floor windows...One, he could see, was not closed completely; perhaps an inch separated the metal casement from its frame.
A single attempt convinced him that the palace walls were not readily scalable; the smooth marble provided no hand or toe-holds, nor did he care to waste time and energy noisily making such holds with his axe. He did not care to attempt lassoing or grappling a gargoyle and clambering up the rope, because he doubted either the gargoyles or the rope were strong enough to hold him, and knew that he was no expert at either throwing or climbing ropes. No, the best approach, he saw, would be to get onto the roof somehow and lower himself down to the window from above, with two or three lengths of rope securely fastened to whatever could be found.
Since the palace itself was unscalable, he would have to get onto the roof from one of the adjacent buildings; to the right was an inn some three stories high, almost as tall as the palace, with overhanging eaves that Garth doubted he could get past, while to the left stood a house of two stories, the upper floor overhanging the lower so that its roof ended not more than two yards from the palace wall and perhaps ten feet below the level of the palace roof. That might serve as a jumping-off point, though the jump itself would be a difficult one.
Reaching that first roof, however, would be easy; an unfallen merchant's canopy sloped away from the house, supported by a fairly substantial wooden frame. Without further consideration, Garth grabbed the lower edge of the canopy, mere inches above his head. Moving as quickly as he could, he swung himself up onto it. The cloth gave, straining dangerously, and a cloud of dust arose, making his eyes water, but the canopy held-at first. He scrambled rapidly up the sloping homespun, feeling it give as he did so; the cloth was tearing loose from its framework. He rolled sideways onto the cloth-covered wood, only to hear the frame creak and feel it start to sag under his weight; but then he was at the top, clinging to the rough facade of the house. It was not rough enough for a proper hold, however, and he knew his grip was insufficient to save him if the rickety canopy were to collapse. Although the fall would probably not hurt him, it would ruin his planned approach to the palace, as well as make a considerable and undesirable racket.
He waited for the swaying and creaking to subside, spreading his weight as best he could, as he considered his next move. The eaves would be within easy reach if he were to stand up, but such an action would undoubtedly bring the tattered merchant's stall down in complete ruin. Perhaps if he could get a toe into the wall of the house he could let that carry the strain; there was an opening between two badly cut stones almost an inch high and four inches long. Carefully, slowly, he brought his left leg up and wedged the pointed toe of his boot into the flaw.
Thus anchored, he pulled himself up the wall a few inches at a time, his right leg resting on the wooden frame, until he was kneeling, his left leg braced against the wall, his hands, with all four thumbs digging in, clinging to the wall above his head. Then, in a single sudden surge, he flung himself upward, catching himself with his arms up over the eaves almost to his shoulder, then swinging his leg up onto the roof. From that perch he pulled up his other leg as he saw the canopy frame below him pull loose from the wall and slowly, quietly fall to the ground, the cloth forming a sort of parachute that both broke the fall and muffled the inevitable clatter.
He paused briefly to catch his breath but dared not wait, lest Shang had heard the noise; the collapse could have been caused by wind or wear, but Garth still had to get out of sight. Wasting no time in preparation, he stood and ran for the roof-edge facing the palace, and launched himself into the short gap between buildings. His run had been hindered by the slope of the roof and he had not fully caught his breath after gaining the rooftop, so the leap was short and sloppy, but his outstretched fingers reached one of the projecting gargoyles and wrapped around it automatically. To his surprise, the carving held; he had underestimated the local masons.
Carefully, he worked his fingers up across the stone until his hold was less precarious; then he swung his feet forward to press against the smooth white marble of the palace wall and give him sufficient traction to shift his grip, so that he could once again swing a leg up. This time it took two attempts to hook a toe over the parapet behind the grinning sculptures; Garth blamed it on the rapidly fading twilight rather than admit that he was tiring already. He was not as young as he once was, having lived more than a century. Though overmen could anticipate a lifespan of about two hundred years, Garth had long since lost the first bloom of youthful vigor.
Having finally gained the security of the palace roof, he moved well back from the edge, out of sight of the market-square if he kept his head down, and rested. Looking about him, he realized that the palace, which he already knew to be almost square, was a hollow square; a large courtyard occupied its center. Though he could not be seen from the market, he was in plain view of a third-floor open gallery that ran the length of the courtyard's opposite side. He crouched lower instinctively, though he knew that there was nowhere on the roof he could conceal himself completely; even the various chimneys were low, little more than holes in the roof. He lay motionless, waiting for a sound that would indicate Shang's whereabouts.
None came.
He remained where he was for several minutes, considering his best course of action. It would be much easier to enter the palace by dropping down into the courtyard or lowering himself into one of the galleries or balconies that adorned it, than by climbing in the front window. In ordinary circumstances it would also be less likely to be noticed. However, circumstances in Mormoreth were far from ordinary; the city was apparently uninhabited except for Shang, and Shang lived in the palace. Therefore, it was quite possible that at any given time he might be on a balcony, in a gallery, or strolling the courtyard, perhaps where he could watch Garth's descent while Garth was unable to see him until it was too late. On the other hand, an approach to the front window would be visible only from the marketplace and the room immediately inside. Shang was not in the marketplace, and could be seen and avoided if he were; and the odds against his presence in a single zoom on an upper floor were much better than the odds on the courtyard. Garth's original plan of action was still clearly the best.
Reaching into his pack, he brought out three ropes. He looped one around one of the low chimneys, and tied it as best as he could in the gathering darkness-which also recommended the front window, as glimmers of reflected firelight, presumably from torches and lamps, could be discerned in the courtyard, while a careful peering over the gargoyles showed the open window to be dark. A second rope was placed around a gargoyle, Garth's faith in them having been increased; and the third rope, since no other anchorage was available, was tied to the head of another gargoyle adjacent to the first, just behind the thing's batlike ears-it had no neck.
The three ropes were loosely braided together, and lowered carefully over the edge; then Garth lowered himself and climbed cautiously onto the dangling cord. To his relief it held, showing no signs of undue strain.
Once below the level of the carvings, it was a simple matter to reach out, swing the casement open-it was well-oiled and swung freely without squeaking-and hook his legs over the sill. Then he was inside, sliding the rope carefully back over his shoulder so that it would not slap noisily against the wall. He regretted the necessity of leaving it dangling there, but with any sort of luck at all it would remain unnoticed until morning. Garth hoped to be out of the palace, his task done, by morning.
The room he found himself in was an unused bedchamber; a vast canopied four-poster occupied most of one wall, while directly opposite stood an ornately carved wardrobe and an elegant full-length mirror. Tapestries covered all the walls, divided here and there to allow draperied doorways. There was only the single window.
Moving carefully around the room counterclockwise, Garth peered carefully through each doorway. The first led to an indoor privy with a complex array of plumbing, which Garth would have liked to study further but could not by the feeble light available. He considered lighting his torch, but decided it was an unnecessary risk. The second door revealed a storeroom of some sort; the third a hallway; the fourth, which had a line of light surrounding the rectangle of drapery, Garth bypassed temporarily; and the fifth and last led to what was apparently a dressing room, with racks of women's dresses along either side. Returning to the fourth doorway, Garth used all his stealth and caution in peering past the velvet curtain. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light.
He was looking at another room of approximately the same dimensions as the bedchamber, furnished with a desk and an assortment of chairs and couches-a sitting room, apparently. It was not lit itself, but on the far side a wooden double door stood wide open, revealing many-paned glass doors through which torchlight poured; they apparently opened onto one of the courtyard galleries.
He had two choices: the darkened hallway or the torchlit gallery. The decision was simple; having rejected the courtyard route once, he saw no reason to risk it now.