Kenneth Bulmer - Keys to the Dimensions 01 by The Key to Irunium

Author:The Key to Irunium
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-02-10T13:04:10+00:00

VI

Savagely, Dalreay hauled Prestin past the end of the earth-cut steps. They crouched in a narrow recess gouged from the living jeweled rock, their ears ringing with the clangor of falling gem stones, their eyes blinded by the thick dust and the roiling clouds of rock chips; any single flying glint of rock could blind them forever if it struck their fleshy eyeballs. Prestin, hands over his face, cowered down and felt his fear lashing him unmercifully.

“I didn’t expect this!” choked Dalreay.

“How much powder did you use?” Prestin let the disgust rise to fight the fear. “Haven’t you any idea?”

“Of course I don’t know!” Dalreay spat out dust and rock chips. The dust whirled about their heads, sucked back and driven up as the air billowed in response to falling sections of roof. A glittering gray mass of rock and rubble poured down the steps, obliterating them. The noise rumbled like the inferno on Saturday night overtime.

Prestin pushed himself harder into the crevice.

“If Nodger were here I’d—I’d shove him into the rock fall!” Dalreay was really worked up. “He told me it would go well—strike another blow for our freedom, he said! Why—I’ll—”

“Who’s Nodger?”

“Him? He’s the most brainless, most useless, most sinful pile of offal this side of the Cabbage Patch.” Dalreay stopped shouting and wiped streaky fingers down the dust and sweat of his face. His beard stiffened, caked in dust. Their hair and eyebrows made them look like millers.

“It’s stopping.”

“By Amra, if it doesn’t the whole roof will cave in. We’ll be buried alive.”

“I thought,” Prestin swallowed and tasted flat dust, “I thought we were.”

“Maybe so. But we don’t know yet. This will bring Honshi, Trugs, rabble, maybe even a few Valcini themselves.” He stood up and bashed angrily at the dust on his green clothes. “We’ve got to find a way out before we’re caught.”

A single glance up the steps showed Prestin that no one was going in or out that way again until a million man hours with shovels had been put in. He felt dry.

Obediently, he followed Dalreay over the sprawled rock shards of the corridor. His eyes hurt and his feet hurt and his mouth felt drier than the rock dust caking his tongue.

“You wouldn’t, by any chance, Todor, have a drink?”

“No. And who gave you permission to use my own name?”

“Your own name—? Oh—I thought it was a title, like, mister—” Prestin licked his lips—unsuccessfully—and eyed Dalreay’s sword uneasily. The green had been cleaned off on the Honshi’s clothes, but the memory of it lingered. So did its smell.

“Todor is my own name. I do not know yours.”

“Robert. Robert Infamy Prestin.”

“So, Roberto—”

“Bob.”

“Bob. We have no water. We will walk until we find a way out. If we must kill guards, Honshi or Trugs, then we will do so. We cannot afford to lose now through any weakness of the flesh. Si?”

“Si,” said Prestin, and slogged on after his leader.

They reached the point at which their original explosion had brought down the ceiling and triggered off the fall down the steps shaft, and Prestin wondered what Dalreay would do.

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