No more pursuers had followed him as yet, but Reinmar knew that he only had a
minute or two to spare if he hoped to make his escape. He had to get back to the
entrance before it could be sealed. With luck, though, a minute or two ought to
be enough. He put the phial he had already opened into his pouch, and threw the
other full one, unopened, into the rock where the stream made its way into the
further depths. It vanished from sight, and he had no doubt that it was
irretrievable. He followed it with two other phials which still had a few drops
of fluid in them.
The crack in the rock was too narrow to accommodate a bottle, but he was not
afraid of the scent of the diluted wine. All he had to do to reduce the stocks
of the final product was to race back and forth along the shelves on the
left-hand wall, tumbling bottles, flasks and jars from the shelves, letting them
smash upon the floor as they fell—and that is what he did.
It only required fifteen seconds of running amok, picking up any stone jars
that would not consent to fall and hurling them this way and that, to wreak
utter havoc in the storeroom. The odour of the spilled wine quickly became
strong enough to intoxicate, but it was nothing like as strong as the perfume of
the pure nectar, which had threatened to immobilise him. The giddiness he felt
only made him wave his arms about more furiously, until there was nothing left
on any of the shelves and his feet were surrounded by shards of broken glass.
The floor of the cavern was sticky and sweet, but the spilled wine was already
draining towards the exit-hole into which he had cast the phials.
The thrill of destruction was delicious, and the rising odour of the wine of
dreams merely served to make it more piquant still.
“What have you done?” Marcilla whispered, finding her voice at last.
“I have revenged you,” he told her, trying to keep his own voice firm and
level. He kept on talking, hoping that it would help to calm his thundering
heart and painting breath. “I have taught these unholy monks a much-needed
lesson as to the proper price of human flesh and human souls. Now, we must go.
We must find Vaedecker, and the way out.
“You killed those men,” the gypsy whispered.
“So I did,” he admitted. “But what I have seen of this vile world below the
world would drive any virtuous man to murder—even one who did not love you. If
ever there were men who deserved to die… Come with me now, I beg you!” So
saying, he took Marcilla by the wrist again, as if to draw her out of the cave—but she was a little stronger now, and she resisted.
“Please,” he said, softly. “You do not know me now, but I love you. If you
cannot trust me, we are both doomed.” He looked deep into her lovely eyes,
hoping that she could measure his worth accurately, and know him for what he
was. She lowered her head, and stopped trying to pull away from him. Perhaps she
had remembered, at last, that she had seen him in her dreams. He drew her
towards him, and hugged her tightly, hoping that the gesture would reassure her.
“We must go now,” he said. She seemed to have understood that necessity, for
she made no effort to hold him back. They departed from the storehouse of the wine of dreams without a backward glance
at the wreckage they left behind.
Once out of the covert, Reinmar began to move rapidly but stealthily along
the wall of the underworld, in the direction which, he hoped and trusted, would
bring them to the spiral stair. Mercifully, although there was no path, the way
was fairly clear. Marcilla followed, not needing to be hauled along. The coldly
glowing wall was to their left. To their right, great ebon bells hung down from
ivory stalks—enough of them to make a carillon. As they passed along the
subtly curving wall, though, the black blossoms gave way to pink, and then to
pale blue, and then to black and white in combination. Reinmar watched them all
the while, fearful that if a single style should extend like a sinuous tongue
from any one of those huge hoods to coil itself about his neck or any part of
Marcilla’s person then he might have a far sterner fight on his hands than the
cadaverous monks had been able to offer.
It seemed, though, that the flowers were lost in some dream of their own. If
they were capable of caring about anything at all, they clearly did not care
about the loss of Marcilla, even though she had been chosen for their use and
called to their service. Reinmar sent a silent prayer of gratitude to Morr
-whose wrath, he now felt sure, must have aided him considerably in his
desperate rush to snatch his beloved from the jaws of a fate far worse than
death. The success of his mad dash now seemed evidence enough that Morr was
severely displeased by these heretic priests and their macabre garden of lost
souls. When he had finished his prayer of thanks, however, Reinmar was quick to
send another, imploring further help. He knew that he was not yet safe, and that
there was ample time for further intervention in this adventure. As soon as he
had made this further plea his heart leapt, for he saw another breach in the
shining wall of the cavern and recognised it as the gateway through which he and
Vaedecker had entered the underworld.
The monk knocked unconscious by Vaedecker still lay unmoving, and alone, at
the tunnel’s entrance. This sight renewed Reinmar’s strength. Gladness surged
through him as he passed beneath the last of the awesome blooms and was suddenly
among the man-made confusion of barrels and bottles, ladders and tables. He
regretted that he had sheathed his sword when he heard rapid movement behind him
as soon as he had passed into the antechamber. But when he whirled about he saw that it
was Matthias Vaedecker hurrying after him, bloodstained sword in hand.
The soldier’s expression was grim. “You should not have moved away from me
without my signal,” Vaedecker said, angrily, “and after having moved, you
certainly should not have hurled yourself upon them without so much as a
sideways glance. Are you mad?”
“Are there any left to chase us?” Reinmar asked, ignoring the rebukes.
“I think not—no thanks to you,” Vaedecker growled.
“On the contrary,” Reinmar told him. “I did my share, and none can say
otherwise.” As he spoke, the memory of the man with the cleaver stuck in his
throat came back momentarily to haunt him, but he was too tired to shudder and
far too wrathful to feel ashamed.
“You had better pray that they are even worse fools than you,” Vaedecker told
him. “If even one has had the sense to run to the stair instead of racing to
meet our blades, then we’re done for. Our only hope is to be up and away before
anyone on the surface realises what has been done down here.” He knelt down as
he spoke and put his fingers to the throat of the unconscious monk, checking for
a pulse. “He’ll sleep for a while yet,” he opined. “I suppose I should slit his
throat, but he’ll be no threat to us if we move quickly. It appears, Master
Wieland, that I underestimated you. I did not think you the kind of man to start
a war so recklessly. We came here as careful spies, not a two-man army set to
run amok.”
“You were the one who came as a spy,” Reinmar reminded him. “I came to save
Marcilla, by any means necessary. It seems to me that the war began as soon as
the monsters in the hills became real. I started nothing.”
Vaedecker shook his head, but not unsympathetically. “The war began in
Marienburg,” he said. “I’ve been on the march with von Spurzheim ever since—but if our battleground had not been decided already, you’ve probably determined
it now. Had we contrived to slip away we might have brought the fight here while
they did not expect us, but whichever evil god has made this place will surely
take it amiss that we have slaughtered his servants. Whatever is waiting for us
at the head of the stair, and however quick a getaway we make thereafter, there
will be a full gathering of our enemies now—and those half-humans who attacked us before
will likely be the least of the assembled army. You have no idea what you have
done, Reinmar Wieland.” The sergeant was trying hard to be censorious, but the
grudging approval beneath the criticism was obvious. Vaedecker might have come
here as a spy, but he was a warrior first and foremost.
“No,” Reinmar replied, “I have no idea what I have done—but I could not
stop at half-measures when I saw what they intended to do with Marcilla, and I
did not.”
“You killed the three who went after you, then?
“Oh yes. And I did what I could to spoil their harvest. I found their
storehouse, and I spilt the wines within. I doubt there is a single flask, of
glass or stone, that is still intact.” He said this proudly, expecting to earn a
further increase in the soldier’s esteem, but Vaedecker only knitted his brow.
Clearly, he had little or no idea what the consequence might be of any
interference with the monks’ own supply of the wine of dreams, and he did not
ask for further details of what Reinmar had done.
“Well,” the sergeant said, “sometimes the recklessness of youth has the
advantage over the skill of the tactician, even though shrewd tacticians usually
live longer than hot-headed heroes. Since we are committed, I suppose we must do
as much damage here as we can.”
Having said that, the soldier went into the tunnel to fetch out one of the
candles set to light it, and applied the flame to the leg of one of the tables.
Given the untidiness of the various objects heaped around the entrance, it was
obvious that a fire would spread quickly, and would not be easily extinguished.
There was no way to judge whether its spreading fumes would be able to hurt the
horrid flowers, but they would certainly help to prevent any pursuit from the
underworld.
“Now,” Vaedecker said as soon as the fire was well and truly alight, “we must
tackle that stair. If we get trapped halfway, the blood we have so far shed will
seem a trivial thing. Are you ready?”
He spoke the last words over his shoulder as he looked back to make certain
that Reinmar and the girl were behind him. They were close on his heels as he
moved swiftly along the tunnel—Reinmar certainly did not want to linger while
the smoke was billowing in every direction.
“I’m ready,” he said, and meant it.
“I don’t understand,” Marcilla whispered, although she consented to be drawn
towards the stair. “Where am I, and what is happening?”
“Don’t worry, my love,” Reinmar implored. “The world we know awaits us up
above, and we have every chance of making good our escape. Only trust me, and I
will see you safe.” He would have felt better had he not caught sight of the
expression in Matthias Vaedecker’s eyes while he spoke these words. Vaedecker
immediately turned his gaze forwards again and said nothing, but if Reinmar read
him right the soldier was of the clear opinion that they would do far better,
even now, to leave the girl behind, no matter what her subsequent fate might be.
They arrived at the foot of the spiral staircase while the air they breathed
was still unpolluted.
“You go first,” Reinmar said, as evenly as he could, “I’ll follow.”
“See that you do,” the sergeant muttered, setting his foot on the first step.
Marching with all the military precision he could muster, Vaedecker began to
climb—and Reinmar followed, in his own fashion.
As they climbed the staircase Marcilla began pulling against Reinmar’s
clutching hand, mewling piteously, but Reinmar would not let her go and while he insisted she had not the strength to pull
away from him. He felt a cold shock of fear in his heart as the possibility
occurred to him that the false death induced by the drug—including a sojourn
in the grave—might have disturbed her very profoundly, even to the extent of
leaving her utterly and irredeemably mad. When he looked back at her, though, it
seemed that her eyes, though bewildered, were lit by reason.
“Have patience,” he whispered, “I am Reinmar Wieland, your deliverer. We must
climb, dear heart, as fast as we can, for we have been in some tomblike world
beneath the world, and must scale this wearisome stair in order to return.”
She swayed, and might have fallen had he not held her so tightly. “This is
the strangest dream of all!” she said, weakly.
He shook her again, and said: “This is no dream, my love! This is real, and
all might still be lost if you will not climb. Come up, my love, come up!”
He pulled her up the steps behind him, but he knew that he could not drag her
all the way. She had to climb by the effort of her own will, and by the strength
of her own frail limbs.
Help me, Morr!
he begged silently.
God of Death you may be, but I beg
you now to help my darling live, until the proper time when you must claim her-for I understand full well that I have saved her for you as well as for
myself!
Whether his prayer was heard or not, he could not know, but Marcilla did
begin to climb, though her unshod feet had begun to bleed and her ankles were
further stained by blood that had leaked from the habit that Reinmar had given
her to wear. As Reinmar forced himself to go round and round, ascending the
flight, she followed meekly, holding hard to the rail as she came. Once she was
in motion, and only had to repeat what she did over and over again, she began to
climb faster and faster, and Reinmar climbed before her, believing that every
step they took, away from the uncanny white-lit underworld toward the golden
radiance of the sun, was a tiny salvation in itself.
How long it took them to reach the top of the spiral staircase Reinmar could
not tell. He did not attempt to count the candles as he passed them by, nor the
steps on which he trod. His body was still perilously close to the limits of its
endurance, and his legs ached terribly. It was as if his entire being were flooded by a kind of fire, which would not let him build any chain of
consecutive thoughts, but burned a single intention into his consciousness: the
intention to put one foot in front of the other, as relentlessly as he could, in
the hope and faith that he would eventually be brought to the end of his course.