Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle (10 page)

For the first time Clive considered defending himself with a weapon other than his wits and his bare hands. His ornate saber still hung from his waist, a weapon whose significance to Her Majesty's servants was increasingly ceremonial rather than practical. Even in earlier times, the saber with its curving blade and razor edge was intended for use by the cavalry, by fast-moving horsemen who would slash at an enemy in a fleeting instant of combat. A sharp-pointed rapier, such as Clive had used so long ago in the castle of N'wrbb Crrd'f, would have been more suitable.

Still, the saber was the best weapon available to Clive, and use it he would. He gripped the scabbard in his left hand, ran the fingers of his right through the basket hilt, and drew the blade.

A sound rose from the crowd. It was a collective response to Clive's gesture, a combination of sigh and moan and gasp and a half-articulated exhalation of encouragement.

Then, for a tingling moment, the room lapsed into a silence so nearly perfect that the rhythmic breathing of its many occupants united to form a weird, organic harmony.

"I did not come here to fight," Clive said. "I will still leave peacefully if you will but open a way for me."

He raised the basket-hilt of his saber before his chin, almost as if in salute, then swept its point downward to the horizontal, pointing it toward the exit that gave back onto the street.

As Clive's blade stood quivering at the horizontal, the companion of giant Bruno stuck sideways at it, a twisting, lunging blow designed to sweep the saber from Clive's hand and bring the man's dagger slicing dangerously toward Clive's torso.

With a practiced twist of his own wrist, Clive sent the man's dagger whirling across the room to fall with a clatter near the now-deserted stage. Again a collective response rose from the crowd. Clive could sense that he, who had arrived a stranger and been greeted as an unwelcome interloper in the establishment, was winning their support with his sportsmanship and his skill in the face of bullies.

Someone in the second row of Clive's attackers handed a bottle to an unarmed man in the front row. The man held the bottle by its neck and smashed it across a table. Clive had heard of such a tactic, wondering if it could succeed. More likely the bottle would simply spin across the room, knocked from its wielder's hand by the force of . its impact.

But the ruffian showed every sign of the experienced killer. Under his control, the bottle was converted in a moment to a deadly weapon. The thug lunged at Clive, the glittering shard of glass thrusting to impale its victim. Now the sharpened edge of Clive's saber came into play. He slashed at his newest attacker with it, slicing into the man's forearm above the wrist. With a curse and a howl the fellow dropped the bottle and plunged backward into the crowd, blood spraying from his wounded arm.

Now two more attackers came at Clive, one from either side, with Bruno following, crouched low and slashing at Clive's legs with his dagger. Clive landed a boot on the point of Bruno's jaw and the man flew backward, his dagger, too, flying above the massed onlookers to clatter against the far wall of the room.

But even his superior combative skills—in a calm corner of his mind Clive blessed both Horace Hamilton Smythe and his bullying brother Neville for the lessons they had taught him—even Clive's superior skills could not hold out indefinitely against the odds that he faced.

He leaped backward and up, hoisting himself with one hand onto the service bar as he did so. For a moment he stood on the polished wooden surface, spied the naked shoulders and colorful dresses of his two erstwhile female companions milling in the midst of others, then dropped behind the bar.

The tender there hustled Clive toward one end of the narrow space. "This way, sah! This way!" They scurried toward a door of dark-stained wood and polished brass fittings. "We'll get yer out of 'ere in a mo' now, yes we will, sah!"

Clive had a bare instant as the barkeep twisted the doorknob for him, opening the door and shoving Clive through it. Even as he stood in darkness, cavalry saber in hand, Clive blinked, stunned by the face he had beheld.

Was that malleable countenance the one he thought it was? One who had appeared first as a Chinese mandarin on the West India docks, and then again aboard the
Empress Philippa
, as an Arab guard in the heated atmosphere of Zanzibar, as a onetime duelist in the American city of New Orleans?

Was this none other than Quartermaster Sergeant Horace Hamilton Smythe?

Before Clive could clear his mind, before his eyes could adjust to the new darkness that surrounded him, there came the sound of a safety match being scratched into flame, then a tiny pop as a gas fixture was lighted.

The man who had ignited the illuminating gas turned to face Clive. He wore a frock coat, a frilled white shirt, and a cravat of purple silk. His hair was curled, and rich muttonchop whiskers met to form a luxuriant mustache.

"A drawn saber, Major Folliot? Such melodrama, really." The man extended an elegantly manicured hand, not to be shaken but merely to indicate a brass-studded, leather-covered chair that stood between himself and Clive. "Please, Major. Put up your wog-sticker, you will not need it here. Or, if you did, it would be to meet a challenge for which it would be a wholly inadequate response. Of that, I can assure you."

He paused for a beat, two. Then, "Please, Major. I appeal to you."

Cautiously, looking in all directions to assure himself that no third party was present in the room, Clive returned his saber to its scabbard. Slowly he lowered himself into the indicated seat.

The frock-coated man nodded approvingly. "You do look splendid in your uniform, Major. Red is not a color all men can wear, but against your patrician features it is most flattering."

Clive gazed, astonished, at his host. He had been startled just moments before to recognize the bartender as Horace Hamilton Smythe. But if his encounter with Smythe had been a startlement to him, it was nothing compared to the shock of recognition he now experienced.

"Philo B. Goode!"

"Yes"—the other man bowed graciously—"at your service, sir." A table stood nearby, and Goode drew a chair for himself and sat at the table. "Will you join me, Major Folliot? I think we have a great deal to discuss."

Clive's head swam. Philo Goode! Philo Goode! The mountebank gambler from whose cardsharpery Horace Smythe had saved Clive in the passenger saloon of the
Empress Philippa
. Clive had exposed Goode and his two confederates to the ship's captain, and they had been put ashore in West Africa to fend for themselves.

Later Clive learned from Horace Smythe that Goode and his confederates, Amos and Lorena Ransome, had caught him, Smythe, in a complicated scheme aboard a Mississippi River steamer. The scheme had led to a duel in New Orleans and the snaring of Horace into an even wider conspiracy involving the three others. It was a scheme that involved them in the Dungeon, Clive knew, although in what capacity he had only the fuzziest of ideas.

Now that Clive had been drawn back to London in the year 1896, he had found Horace Hamilton Smythe tending bar in this disreputable establishment, while Philo Goode stood ready to greet him as a long-lost associate in the back office.

It was too much to assimilate in such a brief moment. Clive lowered his face to his hands, rubbed his eyes, then raised his face once again and sat in anticipatory silence.

In the sparsely furnished, officelike room, the only sound for a few moments was the soft hissing of the gas fixture. Sounds from the outer establishment, apparently a combination saloon and small-time music hall, with a possible additional function as a place of assignation, penetrated to the rear chamber.

Clive's precipitous departure from his confrontation with Bruno and his associates had prompted a major uproar in the place. But after a brief period the voice of the bartender could be heard, restoring order with a series of commands given in crisp, authoritarian tones.

The music started up again. Clive heard a piano, cornet, and drumbeat. Then came female voices uncertainly harmonizing upon a tune unfamiliar to Clive, its semi-audible lyrics apparently dealing with a request from a young lady and addressed to her gentleman. "Do, do, my huckleberry, do," Clive heard, without noting a clear specification as to what it was the huckleberry was supposed to do. His imagination supplied a variety of answers.

"You
are
Mr. Philo Goode, of America, are you not, sir?" Clive addressed the frock-coated man.

"That I am, sir."

"And that"—Clive gestured with a jerk of his head—"that was Sergeant Smythe? Sergeant Horace Hamilton Smythe?"

"It is indeed Horace Hamilton Smythe, Major Folliot. As for the title you give him—
sergeant
—I suppose it is one to which he is entitled. But to me he is known in a far more exalted role. One which you yourself might envy."

"And what rank is that?"

"I fear that I am not at liberty to reveal that information to you, Major. There are organizations and entities of immense power and importance whose very existence would startle a man of your modest attainments. Forgive my candor, please."

Clive flushed. "The rank of major is a not inconsiderable one, Mr. Goode, the attaining of which is no inconsiderable feat. Nor is it altogether beyond imagining that I may yet accede to the title of baron, although my elder twin Neville is at present the heir presumptive to the rank and its accompanying lands and perquisites."

"I quite understand that, Major Folliot." Goode leaned part of the way across the ornate table and opened a humidor of polished walnut and brass. He extended the humidor toward Clive. "May I offer you a cheroot, Major? I have them imported from Cuba, made to my personal specifications, rum-soaked and carefully seasoned."

Clive shook his head.

"I am sure you will not mind, then." Goode extracted a brown cigar, lighted it, and exhaled a cloud of heavy blue smoke toward the ceiling. "Now, sir," he addressed Clive after removing the cheroot from his mouth, "I should not be surprised at all to learn that you have some questions for me."

"I already asked you the first, Mr. Goode. What is Sergeant Smythe doing in this establishment, tending bar for a saloon's worth of ruffians and harlots?"

"For one thing, Major Folliot, he was saving your neck. As I understand he has a habit of doing."

Again Clive flushed. He had to admit, at least to himself, that he had been saved more than once by Horace Hamilton Smythe. To Philo Goode, however, he said nothing at this point.

"You do understand that you faced a severe battering at the very least, at the hands of my… guests." Goode tipped his own head toward the outer room. "A severe battering at the very least," he repeated, "if not a maiming—or even your death."

"I was holding my own quite nicely, thank you very much."

"Indeed you were. I was most impressed by your performance, Major Folliot." Goode rose and strode to a drapery that stretched from ceiling to floor. With a single sweep of his arm, he drew it aside to reveal the inside of the saloon. The long mirror behind the bar was transparent from its rear; any occupant of the office could thus observe activities in the business establishment without himself being noticed.

"You are no longer the soft weakling who set out from London in 1868 to find your brother, Major."

"What do you know of my adventures, Mr. Goode? And what has been your role in them? A cardsharper? A mountebank operating on a Mississippi steamer?"

"Those things, yes," Goode acknowledged. He returned to the table, drew and released another long plume of blue smoke from his cheroot, and tapped ashes from it into a heavy ashtray. "Those things and more, I suppose I ought to say."

"You ought to say, indeed, sir! You are connected with the Dungeon. I saw you on the level which I can only describe as"—he flushed to speak the word—"Hell."

"Well, one has one's duties, Major Folliot. One has one's duties."

"Are you the master of the Dungeon?"

Goode collapsed into his chair, doubled over with laughter. When he had recovered himself, he said, still chuckling, "I—the master of the Dungeon? Well, I suppose a cat can look at a king. A street-urchin can envy a senator. Oh, I am far, far from being master of the Dungeon."

"Are you connected with the Ren? With the Chaffri? With the Gennine?"

"Ah, now you address me with a more realistic question. Yes, I am connected with… a group."

"With which? And for what purpose?"

"You will learn everything that you need to know, Major Folliot—when you need to know it."

"I can see that I am going to receive no satisfaction from you, Mr. Goode. It would be tempting to take action against you directly—I know enough of you to know that you are up to no decent end—but for the moment, I will simply take my leave of you. Good day, sir—or should I say, good night!"

Clive rose from his seat and strode back toward the door.

Philo Goode moved more rapidly even than Clive, but rather than blocking his path to the exit, he moved to the mirrored panel that revealed the outer room. "Look before you leap, Major Folliot. Look well!"

Clive stood staring at the glass panel. He saw not a saloon filled with carousers and harlots, but a pit of roaring, dancing flames.

"It is Hell!" Clive exclaimed.

"You would not survive five minutes out there, Major Folliot. In fact, not one minute. But there is another means of egress." He bent and pulled up the corner of an oriental carpet. Beneath it, a trapdoor fitted with a heavy iron ring was revealed.

With a grunt, Philo Goode tugged the trapdoor open. A flight of stone steps led downward into the gloom.

"You want me to go down there? To face I know not what? To face, perhaps, my death?"

"Major Folliot, had I desired your death, I assure you, you would have been thoroughly and irrevocably dead long before now. Take my word for that. Please, go down these steps. They are the only way out of this place—for you."

Clive hesitated. He considered trying to leave the same way he had arrived in this room. Perhaps the vision of the flaming, hellish inferno was an illusion, a trick designed to mislead him. But he did not believe that was so. Still, he carried his saber yet. He could draw it, possibly take Philo Goode prisoner, force him to reveal what he knew, force him to reveal a safe means of egress from this trap.