Phthor Read online

  “You sure know a lot!” she said admiringly.

  “I’m fourteen, almost. I know how to read.”

  “I’m eleven. I read, too.”

  “What did you do? Kill someone?”

  “You never asked my name.”

  “If I asked your name, will you tell me what you did?”

  “No. I’m not supposed to tell.”

  Arlo shrugged, though he was furious at being balked again. This child did not seem like a criminal—but according to Aton, only the worst offenders were sentenced to Chthon-prison. What could she have done, to deserve this?

  “I could tell you a lie,” she offered. “I’m good at that. You wouldn’t know the difference, would you?”

  “I would if you told me it was a lie!”

  “But I could pretend it was the truth.”

  Arlo found her reasoning too devious. “Coquina says people should always tell the truth.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  He thought of the necessary lies he had told his mother. “No.”

  “Well?”

  “All right. What’s your name?”

  “Vesta. That’s a lie, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my real name might give away what I did.”

  “Then why were you so eager to give me your name?”

  “So you’ll know me.”

  “I don’t need a name for that!”

  “Yes you do. A girl’s name is excruciatingly important.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Call me Ex for short.”

  “I don’t need to call you anything!”

  “You’re lovely when you’re mad.”

  “Here’s your food,” he said, shoving the scorched and bubbling meat under her nose.

  “It should be Esta, or maybe Es, but I like Ex better.”

  “So why are you in prison?”

  “I’m not. I’m out in the caverns, here. I’m an Ex-prisoner.”

  “That isn’t what I meant!”

  “Ugh!” she said, snuffing the jellywog. “Maybe we should have left it raw.”

  “You told me you’d tell me if I asked your name!”

  “I told you I’d tell you a lie,” she said. “I did.”

  “The name-lie doesn’t count!”

  “The lie,” she said carefully, “was that I would tell you why I was sent to prison.”

  For a moment he was baffled. “I don’t understand you!”

  “Do you need to?”

  “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, dismayed.

  “You could take back your burned fish.”

  “Why?”

  “To get even for the lie. Punishment. Revenge.”

  “That would waste the food.”

  “Then you could hurt me some other way. Hit me, maybe.”

  He thought about it. The notion was peculiarly attractive, but she was probably teasing him again. The blow would never land—or would be accepted as the gambit for a deadly counter. That was the way Aton fought, and even in play it was dangerous. Still, this could test what she really knew about combat. If he stuck hard and fast, blocked the counter shot and jumped away simultaneously, it might be worth the risk. “Yes.”

  “Hit me!” she said, putting her hands behind her back and lifting her small chin. She was very pretty that way.

  Arlo hit her.

  Swift and hard, his fist caught her on the chin and knocked her back. He was pleased—he had actually foiled the counter and gotten out of range unharmed!

  Ex fell like a broken stalagmite. The back of her head cracked into the stone wall. She collapsed into a huddle similar to the one he had found her in, but this time she was not crying.

  Immediately Arlo was sorry. He had not realized how much larger he was than she, or how little resistance she would have. It was obvious now that Ex was not a trained fighter. She had aggravated him and invited retaliation, not expecting more than a token strike. He had been angry but had never meant to destroy her.

  He squatted, looking at her head. There was blood on it, seeping through her yellow hair, turning it red. He scooped some water from the river—this was beyond the sucker section—and splashed it on, trying to clean the wound. She was not dead, but he knew that head injury could kill her slowly or make her like a zombie. Loss of blood was not good either, and its smell would attract predators.

  Arlo realized that he was much better at killing than at healing. “Chthon!” he cried in anguish, appealing to his friend the god for help. But still Chthon was absent.

  Quickly he considered his alternatives. He could put her in the river, letting her body float down to the nearest potwhale. It happened to be a medium-sized one, capable of consuming the carcass in a few hours. But she wasn’t dead yet, and despite all the annoyance she had caused him, he still didn’t want her dead. Never before had he had company, other than adult; now he knew he needed it.

  He could tell his parents. But Aton would be suspicious of human intrusion into the caverns, and Coquina would be upset. They might make Ex go away, back to the prison-tunnels—and Arlo wasn’t ready for that either. This little girl had made an impression on him—of what nature he wasn’t sure. But he could not let her go until he knew.

  He could take her to his hvee garden, a secret place even his parents did not know of. Ex had said hvee grew only on Planet Hvee, but this was not true. In his garden it would be easy to take care of her and feed her until she recovered—if she did recover. If not—there were plenty of pot whales.

  So his mind reasoned, but his emotion was already committed. He had hurt her; he must make her well. He hardly knew her, yet she promised to fill a void that was no less intense for its recent discovery.

  He picked her up, amazed again at how little she weighed, and carried her downstream. Her bare legs dangled across his left arm, and her blood-damp hair across his right. He felt again the unaccustomed agony of remorse.

  Never again would he strike a person thoughtlessly.

  In due course he passed a glow chipper—a gray, man-sized creature with close-fitting scales, standing on its hind legs and bracing against its tail to reach the edible height of glow with its buck teeth. It was strong but harmless; in fact, it was possible to ride on its back even without Chthon’s intercession. Few cavern creatures were that docile!

  “Good!” Arlo exclaimed. “Chipper can carry the burden!”

  But he soon realized that this would not do after all. Riding was one thing; making the stupid creature carry was another. Only Chthon could tune it to that degree. By themselves, the chippers followed their natural bent. They knew that Arlo was not a threat to them, so they ignored him. No help there.

  The burden was not great, but travel was cumbersome with his arms engaged. He might have slung her over his shoulder, but he was afraid her dangling head would bleed worse. He was unable to take advantage of the most direct route to the garden because he could not swim or climb this way. Few of the linked caverns were conveniently level; their reaches twisted like monstrous wormholes—lava tubes, Aton called them—cut through by streams and fractures. The most dangerous animals tended to frequent the lower reaches of any given cave—the very region Arlo now had to walk. And he could neither throw his cheek stones nor wield his stalactite-spear while carrying Ex.

  It was amazing what a difference one girl made.

  He was in no trouble yet. The animals of the caverns were not as smart as he and would not realize his limitations immediately. But this was increasingly nervous business, for news of his strange behavior would already be spreading through Chthon. Free, strong, and agile, he had few mortal enemies; handicapped, he would have many. The chimera...

  Arlo shuddered momentarily. He could not risk that!

  There was only one dry, level-route shortcut to the garden: through the labyrinth of the dragon.

  Arlo did not fear the dragon, but that was because it was unable to leave i
ts own tunnels. It was huge body was so constructed that it could operate effectively only in its own territory; in a larger cavern it would become clumsy, easily escaped. But within its ten-foot diameter tubes it was a juggernaut, ferocious and irresistible. It was carnivorous, feeding on those creatures large and small who foolishly wandered or dropped into its premises and were unable to find their way out in time.

  Now Arlo was about to enter that region. For the sake of a bothersome girl who would probably die anyway. He knew he was acting irrationally—being a fool, as Aton put it—and a part of him raged against that. Still he went.

  These passages were not natural. They were round, scraped out of the solid rock by the mighty claws of the dragon. True, the rock was soft here; Arlo could chip it himself with his stalactite. But it would have taken him months of tedious labor to make even a small tunnel—and these were not small!

  He entered through a reduced-diameter tube, left over from that time, perhaps centuries ago, when the dragon had been young. It had widened most of the passages, but there were a lot of them to cover and it had neglected some at the fringe. Perhaps it had merely changed the design, so that they were not needed anymore—or even left them deliberately for the entry of prey. Obviously more were caught than escaped, or the dragon would have starved.

  Arlo had been all around the burrow, extensive as it was, and knew that it was largely two-dimensional. The dragon’s bulk was such that it would be crushed by its own weight in any fall, so it didn’t like to climb. Old Doc Bedside had explained that; he knew a lot about the way animals functioned.

  Also, the dragon normally slept at this time and it was not readily roused. So the gamble was not intolerable.

  The small tube debouched into a great one. Claw-scrape marks showed the dragon’s handiwork, constantly scraping the passage walls to accommodate its increasing girth. The overall pattern of the complex was not complicated; the tubes radiated out from the hub-chamber like the spokes of one of the wheels depicted in LOE. A spiral tube intersected them, making several complete rounds before it terminated in a dead end. All the spokes carried beyond the spiral, dead-ending also. Most creatures that wandered into the labyrinth got lost because their minds could not fathom the nature of the pattern. When pursued by the dragon, they instinctively fled out ward and landed in a dead end—where they were sure prey.

  Arlo carried his burden swiftly toward the center. It was escape-noise to which the monster was primarily attuned. Approach-noise it tolerated because it wanted the prey to get as far inside the system as possible and get lost. So long as Arlo walked firmly and without fear, the dragon was unlikely to be alerted.

  Still, Arlo wished this stage of his journey were over.

  The spokes were short compared to the spiral, but it would have taken Arlo ten minutes to traverse the pattern empty-handed. Now it would take double that.

  He came to the hub. The dragon was there, asleep within the mighty folds of its skin. Even in repose, it was almost twice Arlo’s height. Of course it stood no higher when active; its legs were short and its torso stretched out for a leaner running posture. The smell of it was stifling, for its dung lined the chamber and flavored the entire burrow. It was snoring: a whooshing like that of a distant wind tunnel.

  He skirted it, forcing himself to walk boldly so as to maintain the “approach’ pattern. The outer trek would be more ticklish. He could have used the spiral tube, but that would have taken much longer and would have been more likely to alert the slumberer. It was not the nearness or loudness of the sound that counted so much as their nature and direction.

  Ex stirred in his arms. That was good because it suggested she was recovering, but also bad because he would not caution her to silence. The sound of his voice would bring the dragon to troubled life!

  The girl sneezed.

  The dragon started. Its massive tail twitched.

  Arlo continued walking. Any change in his motion-pattern would be fatal—if his situation were not already hopeless. A sneeze was not fear-noise; it just might pass...

  The great beast rolled over, its metal-hard rock-hewing claws coming into view. Each foot was the size of Arlo’s chest, and each nail was backed by the peculiar musculature and bone leverage that gave it phenomenal driving force. The dragon, Arlo realized, could be a distant cousin of the glowmole because of that special foot structure.

  Now he entered the far tube he had selected, and the dragon did not stir again. They had gotten past. Arlo shuddered with relief.

  “Where are you taking me?” Ex inquired loudly.

  There was a snort. Arlo did not need to look back to know the dragon was alert now! They were in for it.

  “Fool!” he cried angrily dumping the girl down on her feet. “Run—if you can. Straight down this tunnel. There’s a hole near the end—I’ll go another way.”

  Already the dragon was moving, ponderously because it was still sleepy, shaking the rock with pounding of its feet. Arlo screamed as if in terror—no difficult task!—and charged down the spiral tube.

  The dragon reached the intersection and hesitated, confused by the presence of two items of prey. Which one to follow? But in a moment it decided: the frightened one. Sinuously it turned the corner, coming after Arlo. Ex stayed frozen as the lengthening torso slid by her. Arlo could tell without seeing her directly; there was no sound except that of the dragon.

  He had intended to lure the monster, but now he was in trouble. He might avoid it for a while by dodging at right angles into other cross-tubes, for its mass and velocity would make it less agile than he. But that could not last forever—and it would not save Ex, wounded and lost as she was. The moment the dragon gave up on him, she would become its prey—and standing still would not fool it this time! Why wasn’t she running while she had the chance?

  The rock shook as the dragon’s awful claws landed, propelling its torso forward. Its breath blasted out like burning gas, smelling of carrion. Now Arlo understood some of the reason so many trapped animals acted foolishly or collapsed early. The shuddering stone made the footing seem uncertain, leading to misjudgment and diminished mobility. The very wind from the monster’s lungs tended to blow the prey over. And the heat and odor of that breath might paralyze the prey.

  A cross-tube loomed, and Arlo dodged into it. The dragon skidded around the corner, losing velocity. Good he needed that leeway! Perhaps he could confuse it while it was still sleepy, and double back to find Ex and direct her to the escape. A slim chance, but—

  A wiggle in the tube, then a blank wall loomed before him. He stared, dumbfounded. He had blundered into a dead end! He should have veered the opposite way, toward the center, where there were many options. Instead he had been headed outward, like any dumb animal—and fallen into the dragon’s trap.

  The sides of the tunnel were smooth here, with no claw marks. Evidently the dragon had plastered the wall with its thick spittle, making it resistive to the ubiquitous green glow that grew on the stone everywhere else. Why?

  It was hopeless now, but he had to fight. The bulk of the monster blocked the entire passage; no way to slide past! Its two tiny eyes focused on him as it bore down, jaws gaping.

  Arlo spat one stone into his hand, took aim, and skated it at the dragon’s right eye. But the creature blinked, letting the sharp flake slice its leathery eyelid instead. Arlo threw the second stone at the other eye—and again the dragon blinked. This ploy had not worked—and even had the monster been blinded, it could have dispatched the prey readily.

  The stalactite-spear was Arlo’s last weapon, apart from his cunning. He drew it forth, waiting for the huge jaws to snap at him so that he could leap aside, bestride the snout, and plunge it into an eye. The eyelid would not stop this!

  For good measure, he made several feints with his arm, forcing the dragon to blink unnecessarily. It did not know he was out of stones.

  The head lunged, eyes closed. Arlo bounded high, landing across the hot black nostrils. He scrambled up toward the
eyes—but his feet skidded in the slime of the nose and he landed instead directly before the closing jaws. He could not reach the eyes!

  He thrust the spear into the soft, runny membrane of the nostril. The dragon bellowed and hunched away. For a moment its thickening body met the slick walls of the tube, creating a vacuum as it scraped back. Had he found a way to balk it?

  Then the jaws opened wide, showing what were surprisingly small teeth. Air hissed out, and saliva, forming an opaque cloud.

  “Venom!” Arlo exclaimed as its stinging mist encompassed him. Now he was done! “Chthon! Chthon!” he cried.

  Here, friend, the voice in his brain said. Chthon had returned!

  The dragon’s body thinned. Fresh air sucked in around the edges. Arlo gulped it avidly, clearing the pain from his lungs, letting the tears wash it out of his eyes. He was safe now; no creature in the caverns could prevail against the god’s control.

  Arlo let go a burst of gratitude and query: Chthon had saved him—but where had Chthon been until now? “Come see what I found!” he said aloud, remembering Ex.

  Then Chthon left him. Dismayed, Arlo stood looking about, as though his mere eyes could locate that presence. Was this a rebuke? What had he done?

  Yet Chthon’s absence was not complete, for the dragon remained quiescent. What did this refusal to communicate mean?

  Arlo shrugged. He ran back to recover his fallen weapons, then loped down the tunnel toward the spot where he had last seen Ex. First he must get her and himself out of the warren; then he could ponder Chthon’s meaning at leisure.

  She was there, sitting cross-legged in the passage. Apparently she never had recovered the wit to run! Her head lolled forward, and sweat glistened on her body.

  No—not sweat. Slime. Foul-smelling, glistening white, forming all over her skin. Had her head wound done this—or the dragon’s poison?

  No, there had not been time for the monster to exhale its venom on her. This was myxo, the mucus of Chthon. Once before he had seen it, on his father Aton, when the man had attempted to go where Chthon had forbidden. And Doc Bedside had discussed it. It was the god’s way of punishing a creature with brain and willpower to resist the mandates of the caverns.