Lyonesse

Chapter 24

WHERE DAHALT BORDERED ON NORTH ULFLAN'D a scarp eighty miles long, the front face of the Teach tac Teach, overlooked the Plain of Shadows. At a place named Poelitetz, the river Tamsour, flowing down from the snows of Mount Agon, cut a chasm which allowed relatively easy access from Dahaut to the moors of North Ulfland. Poelitetz had been fortified as long as men had made war across the Elder Isles; whoever held Poelitetz controlled the peace of Far Dahaut. The Ska, upon seizing Poelitetz, began an enormous work, to guard the fortress from the west as well as the east, so that it might be totally impregnable. They had closed the defile with masonry walls thirty feet thick, leaving a passage twelve feet wide and ten feet high, controlled by three iron gates, one behind the other. Fortress and scarp showed a single impervious face to the Plain of Shadows.

The better to reco

Upon arrival at Poelitetz, Aillas, Yane and Cargus were subjected to a perfunctory inquisition. Then, instead of the maiming or mutilation which they had expected, they were taken to a special barracks, where a company of forty Skalings were held in isolation: the tu

With death clear and large before them, none of the Skalings worked in haste: a situation which the Ska found easier to accept than to alter. So long as reasonable progress was made, the work was allowed to go its own pace. The routine each day was identical. Each Skaling had his assigned duty. The tu

*The water-level comes in several forms. The Ska used a pair of wooden troughs twenty feet long with a section four inches square. Water in the troughs lay perfectly horizontal; floats at each end allowed the troughs themselves to be adjusted to the horizontal. By shifting the troughs in succession, the desired horizontal could be extended indefinitely, with an accuracy limited only by the patience of the engineer.

A Ska overseer directed the Skalings with a pair of soldiers to enforce discipline, should such control be needed. The overseer and the guards tended to remain at the open end of the tu

Two shifts worked the tu

After only two days of work, Aillas told Yane and Cargus: "We can escape. It is possible."

"You are more perceptive than I," said Yane.

"Or I," said Cargus.

"There is one single difficulty. We shall need the cooperation of the entire shift. The question becomes: are any so broken that they might betray us?"

"Where would be the motive? Everyone sees his own ghost dancing ahead of him."

"Some persons are traitors by nature; they take pleasure in treachery."

The three, squatting by the wall of the chamber in which they spent the off-hours, considered their fellows, one by one. Cargus said at last: "If we share together the prospect of escape, there will be no betrayal."

"We have to assume as much," said Yane. "We have no better choice."

Fourteen men worked the shift, with another six whose duties never took them into the tu

The tu

The side-tu

At sunset the tu

Ten minutes later Aillas went to summon Kildred the overseer, a tall Ska of middle-age, with a scarred face, a bald head and a ma

"The diggers have struck a dike of blue rock. They want rock-splitters and drills."

"'Rock-splitters'? What tools are these?"

"I don't know. I just carry messages."

Kildred muttered a curse and rose to his feet. "Come; let us look at this blue dike."

He stalked into the tu