Dominion by Fred Saberhagen (best motivational novels txt) 📕

   “Good guy,” said Simon, and kissed her gently on one ear. Marge had fits of women’s lib of varying intensity, and being called girl sometimes caused an argument.

   “If this works, you’ll be a good guy yourself. If it doesn’t…”

   “We’ve got an upper level to check out,” Simon whispered. Flicking on the penlight again, he led her to and up another flight of stairs. This was steep and went up a long way. At the top of this the passage, now so narrow that even Marge scraped both sides as she passed, ran level for a considerable distance. At intervals of a few yards more niches were built into the wall, on the same side, again with spots of indirect light filtering through them. These spy windows were quite low down in the wall, and each of them gave into a separate bedroom, four or five in all. Peering into one of these rooms after another, Simon and Marge found them empty of people but all furnished and apparently ready for use. The passage they were in still followed the outer wall of the castle, and the windows in the bedrooms were under their feet. In a couple of the rooms luggage had already been deposited.

   At the spyhole to the last bedroom, Simon indicated a division in the section of paneling that showed through the stone window.  “Give a push here and it should swing open, if for any reason you have to get out this way.” It was always good to have some kind of fall-back plan.

   “Like looking for the ladies’ room, maybe. It’s only about two o’clock now—I could be in here another six hours or so, and then have to go right into the act.”

   “I guess I didn’t think…”

   “I’ll cope. I’m resourceful.”

   “Sure you will.” Simon kissed her, quickly but with real affection. They had been working together and occasionally sleeping together for a year now, and sometimes he thought that something permanent had grown between them and then again he didn’t know. He turned away, then back. “Here, you’ll need the flashlight. Almost forgot.”

   “Can you grope your way out?”

   “No problem.” And he was on his way; in moments at the top of the uppermost stair, down which he felt his way on his soft-soled shoes.

   The first part of the trip out was uneventful. It was as if every foot of the way had already been engraved upon his memory. But when he had got as far as the branching tunnel in the base of the wall he was surprised to see that light was filtering upward very faintly from the branch. Probably just the penlight in his hand had been enough to mask it when they were on the way up. Simon paused, watching. The light was possessed by a tiny flicker, as if its source were flame. Before he left Margie alone in the tunnel system, he ought to check this out.

   Down a short turning stair in the branch tunnel, and he came to what surprised him, a real door. It was made of crude wood that seemed to fit with the rest of the decor, and was swung partly ajar, out into a sizable stone room with stone-flagged floor. In the room a torch in a wrought-iron wall sconce burned dimly, making the illumination that had drawn Simon here. Against the wall not far from the torch there stood on two legs a metal object that Simon at first took for a suit of armor. It took him a few moments’ staring in the dim light to realize that it was some kind of iron maiden, a complex instrument of torture.

   At best the old man had had a bizarre sense of humor. Whatever this sub-basement was being used for now, the open door, the torch, meant that it was certainly being used for something, and that what Simon had thought were the secret passageways were known. He would have to go back and get Margie and get out. But first he was going to try to find out exactly what…

   When he peered cautiously round the edge of the door, the whole room, or almost all of it, was visible. Besides the iron maiden, other peculiar instruments stood about in it. Most notably a bed-like rack, with great spoked wheels made to give leverage for disjointing the victim’s limbs. And the rack was occupied…

   Simon stepped back, closed eyes and rubbed them, mumbled something halfway between a prayer and a curse, then stepped forward and looked again. The rack was occupied by the naked body of an old man, gray-whiskered, paunchy, whose wrists and ankles were bound to the machine by the provided heavy straps, and who looked as if he were not dead but certainly unconscious.

   Moving without conscious volition, Simon pushed the door open farther and stepped out into the room. Eyes fixed on the rack and its’ occupant, he moved forward slowly. He’d been working up to an hallucination like this one all afternoon, and now it was here, and he was almost glad, knowing that it couldn’t possibly be real.

   The old man was quite motionless except for gentle, faintly snoring breathing. A small rope of saliva trailed from one corner of his mouth. The leather strap holding one of his arms felt like a taut strap when Simon touched it, and the old man’s forearm, puffed slightly by the tight bond, certainly felt like flesh. But this couldn’t be—

   Simon started to take a step backward, and without warning a strangling grip clamped on him from behind. His neck was caught, one arm pinioned. He could no longer breathe and his head was going to burst and he knew that in a moment more he would be dead.

SIX

   In Chicago pawnshops they had looked at enough samurai swords, at least imitation ones, to have conquered China; enough Nazi bayonets, most of which