Read Online The Two of Swords: Part 9 by K. J. Parker - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: K. J. Parker
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painfully long way. She established the interval by marking off in handspans. Then she backed up all the way to the hatch and started again.
One hundred and sixty-four notches. Directly overhead there should be a slab that lifted.
The knife, in its sheath, was gripped in her right hand. She’d almost forgotten what it was there for. Oh, that. Reaching up, she laid the flat of her left hand and the knuckles of her right on the underside of the roof, and pushed as hard as she possibly could. It lifted, a little. Not nearly enough. She gave it everything she had, but she couldn’t move it any further.
Then, quite suddenly, it wasn’t there any more, and she was drowning in unendurable light. Her still-upraised left hand was grabbed, and someone incredibly strong hauled her up an impossibly long way, then set her down lightly on a hard, smooth floor.
She blinked, but all she could see was a painfully bright blur, and all she could do was pant and whimper. A voice was talking to her. Unbelievably, it was saying, “Are you all right, miss?”
Later, she saw it from his point of view. A manhole opens; he hauls it up and there’s a naked woman, trembling and squealing and sopping wet. The most extraordinary thing you’ve ever seen; but hardly a danger. What else would you do but pull her out, calm her down and try and find out how she got there?
It was pure, undeserved luck that she’d dropped the knife when he pulled her up, because if he’d seen it he might have formed a different view. As it was, she had no trouble at all drawing his sword and stabbing him in the pit of the stomach with it. Not a clean kill, but enough to shut him up; she pulled it out and stabbed him again, this time in the hollow between the collarbones. He rocked back, hit a wall and lay still. Onwards.
She stepped over him and located the cabinet Oida had told her about. Of course it was locked, and it was a great heavy thing, inch-thick oak boards with dovetailed joints. Her knife would’ve snapped if she’d tried to force it open with that, but the sentry’s sword managed it, though she bent the blade. Like she cared; she was radiantly happy, because she was out of the hole, out of the grave, risen again from the dead, her heart had stopped pounding and she could breathe.
There were, of course, three sets of five keys with four short ones and one long one. Not her problem. She looped them round the middle finger of her left hand and closed her fist on them. She’d left wet footprints on the floor, as though she’d just got out of the bath; quite possibly a fatal mistake, but she simply didn’t care any more.
Then she looked at the hole in the floor; the deep, black hole that led down to hell, where thieves and murderers go for all eternity. I can’t, she thought. She backed away from it until she met the wall, then slid down it and crouched, not moving, as though it would pounce on her if it saw her.
She woke up with a start, because a voice in her ear had just said,
one hour, we’re on the clock
. She looked round, but there was nobody there.
One hour, and she’d been asleep. She scrambled to her feet. The hole was still there, and it was going to eat her alive, but it didn’t matter. She had a job to do, and she was late.
Pulling the guard down into the hole wasn’t going to be easy; doing that and then closing the flagstone after her— Bloody Oida, she told herself, he just doesn’t
think
.
She did the geometry. If she pitched the guard down the hole first, he’d fill the available space and she wouldn’t be able to get past him. Would she? It was an assumption, but assumptions are there to be challenged. She considered the room available, her own size and shape, the alternative – go down into the hole, drag the guard down after her by the ankle, then somehow reach past and lower the flagstone – no, that wasn’t possible. So, no alternative at all.
She dragged him by one foot and fed him down the hole legs first.
One hundred and sixty-four notches. Directly overhead there should be a slab that lifted.
The knife, in its sheath, was gripped in her right hand. She’d almost forgotten what it was there for. Oh, that. Reaching up, she laid the flat of her left hand and the knuckles of her right on the underside of the roof, and pushed as hard as she possibly could. It lifted, a little. Not nearly enough. She gave it everything she had, but she couldn’t move it any further.
Then, quite suddenly, it wasn’t there any more, and she was drowning in unendurable light. Her still-upraised left hand was grabbed, and someone incredibly strong hauled her up an impossibly long way, then set her down lightly on a hard, smooth floor.
She blinked, but all she could see was a painfully bright blur, and all she could do was pant and whimper. A voice was talking to her. Unbelievably, it was saying, “Are you all right, miss?”
Later, she saw it from his point of view. A manhole opens; he hauls it up and there’s a naked woman, trembling and squealing and sopping wet. The most extraordinary thing you’ve ever seen; but hardly a danger. What else would you do but pull her out, calm her down and try and find out how she got there?
It was pure, undeserved luck that she’d dropped the knife when he pulled her up, because if he’d seen it he might have formed a different view. As it was, she had no trouble at all drawing his sword and stabbing him in the pit of the stomach with it. Not a clean kill, but enough to shut him up; she pulled it out and stabbed him again, this time in the hollow between the collarbones. He rocked back, hit a wall and lay still. Onwards.
She stepped over him and located the cabinet Oida had told her about. Of course it was locked, and it was a great heavy thing, inch-thick oak boards with dovetailed joints. Her knife would’ve snapped if she’d tried to force it open with that, but the sentry’s sword managed it, though she bent the blade. Like she cared; she was radiantly happy, because she was out of the hole, out of the grave, risen again from the dead, her heart had stopped pounding and she could breathe.
There were, of course, three sets of five keys with four short ones and one long one. Not her problem. She looped them round the middle finger of her left hand and closed her fist on them. She’d left wet footprints on the floor, as though she’d just got out of the bath; quite possibly a fatal mistake, but she simply didn’t care any more.
Then she looked at the hole in the floor; the deep, black hole that led down to hell, where thieves and murderers go for all eternity. I can’t, she thought. She backed away from it until she met the wall, then slid down it and crouched, not moving, as though it would pounce on her if it saw her.
She woke up with a start, because a voice in her ear had just said,
one hour, we’re on the clock
. She looked round, but there was nobody there.
One hour, and she’d been asleep. She scrambled to her feet. The hole was still there, and it was going to eat her alive, but it didn’t matter. She had a job to do, and she was late.
Pulling the guard down into the hole wasn’t going to be easy; doing that and then closing the flagstone after her— Bloody Oida, she told herself, he just doesn’t
think
.
She did the geometry. If she pitched the guard down the hole first, he’d fill the available space and she wouldn’t be able to get past him. Would she? It was an assumption, but assumptions are there to be challenged. She considered the room available, her own size and shape, the alternative – go down into the hole, drag the guard down after her by the ankle, then somehow reach past and lower the flagstone – no, that wasn’t possible. So, no alternative at all.
She dragged him by one foot and fed him down the hole legs first.
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