Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [40]
Two men dashed into view ahead and skidded to a halt.
"They went that way!" O'Leary shouted. The two newcomers whirled and dashed back out of sight. O'Leary veered sharply, reached a line of trees leading generally palaceward and pounded ahead. A wing of the massive building stretched out toward the trees. O'Leary cleared the end of the row, raced for the refuge of the deep shadows ahead and saw a man back into view fifty yards distant, his attention on the bushes from which he had emerged. Lafayette put on a spurt, dived for the tangle of ivy against the palace wall just as the fellow turned.
"Hey! Here he is, boys!" the man yelled. O'Leary muttered curses and worked his way behind the trailing curtain of vines, forcing his way along against the rough-hewn stone blocks. Feet pelted past and he froze; voices called near at hand. There was the clang of a blade thrust through the vines.
"We got him pinned down, men!" someone exulted. "Spread out and work that ivy!" More clashing of metal against stone, coming closer. O'Leary moved cautiously, gained another foot. Tricky work, trying not to shake the vines. But if he could just get past the corner.
A projecting buttress blocked his way. He felt along its edge; the vine cover ended two feet along it. He was trapped—cornered. Unless . . .
O'Leary closed his eyes, remembering the palace layout. This was the southwest face of the building. He'd never been on this side of the palace, so it ought to be safe.
He pictured a door, just a small one, set a foot or two above ground level. It was made of stout oak planks, weathered but sound, and it was secured by a hasp—a rusty one. Very rusty. It was concealed by the vines, of course, and opened into a forgotten passage which led—somewhere.
At the comforting jolt in the smooth flow of the universe, O'Leary opened his eyes, started feeling over the wall, as steel clashed less than ten feet away. His hands encountered wood, a rough frame, then the door, a squat entry four feet by five, with rust-scaled hinges and a massive padlock dangling from a corroded hasp. O'Leary let out his breath in a preliminary sigh of relief, pushed against the panel. It stirred, came up against the restraint of the hasp. He pushed harder; rusted screws tore out of the wood with a crunching sound.
"Hark, men! What's that?" Hands were tearing at the vines. O'Leary pushed at the resisting door, got it open a foot, slipped inside, forced it shut behind him. A moldering beam lay on the floor; brackets to fit it were mounted on either side of the doorway. He lifted the timber, grunting, settled it into place as a hand slammed the oak from the outside.
"Hey, Sarge! A door! Look!" a muffled voice came through the barrier. More talk, thumps, then a heavy blow.
"He couldn'a got through there, ya dummy, it's locked."
"Hey—if this guy's a like sorcerer . . ."
"Yeah, what's a locked door to a guy like that?"
O'Leary looked both ways along a narrow, low-ceilinged passage, closely resembling the one through which he had been led to Adoranne's room—less than twenty-four hours before, he realized with wonderment; it seemed like days. As for the passage, it was probably part of a system running all through the building. With a little luck, he'd be able to find his way back to the princess' apartment and explain what had happened without having to venture out into the open.
He moved off, barely able to see by random glints of dim light filtering through chinks in the crudely mortared walls. The passage ran straight for twenty feet, then right-angled. There was a door a few feet beyond the turn. O'Leary tried the latch; it opened, revealing a wide, clean room, smoothly floored, crowded with bulky dark shapes the size of upright pianos. Along the left wall there was a complex pattern of highlights from massed dial faces and polished metal fittings. To the right, more panels, like computer programmer's consoles, were set under wide TV-type screens.