It was a while before that.
Linda, the Little Queen of Paro, was led alone and separated from her two companions into a small room at the top of the tower. It was not until the heavy stone door slowly closed behind her, and the voices and footsteps of the taunting soldiers moved away, that she realized that she was not alone in that room. She realized that she was not alone in the room and stiffened.
Like the chamber in which her twin brother and the Leopard warrior were confined, it too was dark and made of stone. This chamber was even darker because it did not have a lighted window like the one in the chamber on the floor below, making it almost impossible to make out anything until the eyes became accustomed to the darkness.
A musty, strangely unpleasant odor lingered in the air of the room. This did nothing to soothe Linda. For a woman blessed with the qualities of a soothsayer, it was a sign that she was getting dangerously close to the realm of the demonic.
But--at least for now--Linda didn't have the time to let it bother her. She was mesmerized, trapped, and staring at it with her back against the door in a posture of being thrust in and out from behind. Two green eyes, staring back at her with a fierce glow, just in the middle of the floor and under the vaguely discernible tablecloth.
Its eyes were too large for a porcine torc, and for a human being, it huddled on a floor too small for a human body to penetrate. Linda's mind flashed with thoughts of the giant Man-Eating Man-Eater longworm, or the horrible incarnation of the Doll, like the Zomby that had plagued her so much in the Forest of Ludes.
Linda stood still, her hands clasped to her chest, trying to stop the trembling. Her pale lips chant the name of Janus, and her fingers gently draw a runic charm.
But this tense confrontation, in which neither of them could move or look away from the other's eyes, ended as suddenly as it had begun. Linda suddenly realized that the eyes peering out from under the table were just as frightened of her as she was of them, perhaps even more frightened than she was of them. I don't know why - perhaps it was because of the unusually high mental stress she possessed.
Linda took a deep breath and stepped forward.
"Well - you don't have to be scared."
She bravely spoke to an unknown person.
"I'm a prisoner in this tower, just like you."
It was probably not the content of her words that my partner reacted to - because, as I soon found out, he did not speak her words - but the clear, childlike, warm It must have been the clear, childlike, warm crack of her voice. At first there was no response. Eventually, just as Linda was beginning to think about giving up and leaning back in her chair to rest, I cautiously crawled out from under the table and stood face to face with her.
Linda rolled her eyes and watched in amazement as her eyes, finally accustomed to the darkness, caught sight of it. At first, she thought it was a child. At first she thought it was a child, for even standing up straight, the man's head was barely above Linda's waist.
However, his body was not that of an immature child, but rather resembled that of a monkey with a certain degree of uniformity. His face, with its large round eyes, reminded me of a certain kind of monkey - it was somewhat inhuman, but at the same time there was something in his round green eyes that could not be called animal.
His messy black hair was stretched to his neck, and he wore only a furry headdress on his body. Obviously, he's not that old yet. And she was probably a young woman, if I may say so. Her body was completely covered with fur, but I could see that she wore fancy ornaments around her neck and wrists, woven with fuji vines and pretty flowers. When she saw the flower ornaments, which were already wilting, Linda felt a sudden surge of relief and sympathy in her heart.
"You're trapped, too. So am I."
Linda said, pointing at herself and the other person.
"You're a Semite from across the Kes. I've always heard of you, but I've never seen you like this."
His green eyes flashed, as if he were trying to understand Linda's words. But then he turned his head and said something in a high-pitched, rapid voice.
It was Linda's turn to shake her head. It was Linda's turn to shake her head, if I may repeat,
"Suni, Suni, Sema Lakundra Reek."
That's because I could only understand.
"How is it that the Semites, who live on the other side of the Kes River, are caught on this side of the river?"
I tried to tell him, but he just replied with the same rapid speech and incomprehensible words.
So Linda thought about it and decided to resort to the most primitive means of communication. Namely, by pointing at herself repeatedly,
"Linda--Linda."
I repeated it to him.
The response was immediate. The barbarian girl showed her large breasts wrapped in her own fur,
"Suni."
Linda said, "Linda. Linda said "Linda" to herself and "Suni" to her partner. The other person nodded happily.
"Suni the Semite."
Linda tried to tell me.
The fact that they knew each other's names was all that mattered, and they could not communicate with each other by hand, but Linda was satisfied that they had made some kind of emotional contact. She sat down on the couch with slow movements and began to think deeply for the first time about her past, her present situation, and her future.
Perhaps, in conjunction with her prophetic qualities, Linda had a natural instinct for handling small animals and frightened, weak minds. Because the Semitic Suni was so frightened that she could be seen at a glance, if Linda had made even the slightest rough movement or attempted to touch her, the slightest interaction would have been lost immediately.
But Linda moved only slowly, as if afraid of disturbing the flow of air, so the barbarian girl, who had spooked when Linda began to move, immediately understood her intentions and watched her sit down. Then, her green eyes fluttering like a frightened Toris, she stared at Linda, and when she did not move, she went to a corner of the wall, far enough away from Linda, and crouched there, staring at her curiously.
Linda didn't care. She didn't have time to care. She was young, bold, and exhausted. She hadn't slept well last night or the night before.
But as soon as she sat down on the chair, she felt a strong drowsiness and fell asleep at once.
It was not the demon nor the morning light that disturbed the sleep of the young and healthy girl, but a sudden, brief scream and a hint of a desperate struggle.
Linda woke up and saw a horrible sight. On the floor, a Semitic girl was screaming and jostling with two giant hole rats, Toruk, who had crawled out of a hole somewhere in the wall.
The rat's sharp fangs were biting the barbarian girl's shoulders and thighs. Of course, for the rat race, it was an uncanny behemoth, but at best it was a small cat, just over thirty centimeters long. But this was Linda's story. To the dwarf Semites, who were less than a meter tall and weighed only about the same, Toruk would be as much of a threat as a rabid dog.
"Heee! Heee!"
Suni was screaming as she tried to grab and pull away the fangs from her throat whistle with her hands.
"Alfetu! Heee!"
Linda had not been watching for long. As soon as she realized what was happening, she jumped to her feet, looked around for a suitable weapon, but when she didn't see one, she immediately jumped on the floor, and with her bare hands, grabbed one of the Turks, the one that was holding onto Suni's shoulder, and ripped it off.
He slammed the rat against the stone wall with all his might, not caring about the horrible feeling of its dirty fur. There was a crunching sound and the rat's head was crushed.
The other one was very fast. As soon as it got rid of Suni, it tried to jump at Linda. Linda quickly raised the small chair that was there and swatted it away in the air, then jumped at it and crushed it. The crushing of the small animal sent a bad feeling through her whole body, but she was crazy about it.
When she saw that there were no other torques in the room at the moment, Linda put down her chair and stood breathing on her shoulder. She noticed that Suni had fallen and was crying, so she pulled her up and held her to her chest.
"It's okay, it's okay."
I stroked her hair. I had heard that the Semites were unimaginably filthy and ugly, but Suni was clean, and she smelled only of wilted flowers and raw fur.
"Alfetu! Alfetu!"
Suni kept repeating. Holding her little body, Linda felt as if she had become a big and powerful hero.
"It's okay. We got him."
Linda said, but was startled when Suni suddenly threw his arms around her, threw himself at her feet and began to nuzzle her booted feet.
"Semama, Lakhrani, Eni... Suni, Imikul, Riek."
Suni said in an excited voice.
"What is it, Suni? I don't know."
But the meaning of his next gesture was clear even to Linda. Suni put his hand on the back of her neck, took off the festoon of fuji vines which was fastened round her neck, and with a gesture of reverence draped it round Linda's neck. Then, looking up at her with eyes of adoration, he stepped back, put his hand on her breast as one does to a master, and gave her a careful glance. More eloquent than words were the green eyes and the lively expression of the face, which told of the feelings of the barbarian girl.
Linda smiled, lifted her necklace and put her lips on it, and made a graceful bow to the guest, just as a Paro princess would do to a guest at court - and then beckoned Suni to come to the chair next to her.
The two girls sat side by side in the small room of the tower, content to feel as if they were completely at ease with each other. For the moment, at least, they could forget that they were in the midst of the enemy and the predicament they were in. They sat down hand in hand and began to be absorbed in the attempt to somehow communicate with each other.
They sat there, oblivious to all their concerns, until, around midnight, a hidden door in the wall suddenly opened without a sound, revealing a ghostly figure.
On the other hand--
Guin, who was protected from both sides by the Black Knights as he descended the tower, was unexpectedly poked and prodded to descend the tower stairs further into the basement as he was taken to the main hall.
The stone stairs became steeper and steeper, and water oozed from between the surrounding stones, forming puddles in the hollows of the stones. The stairs leading to the basement seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning, but at last we came to a corridor lined with pillars, dark and soaking like a cave.
"Right."
Perhaps it was the surrounding darkness, the dripping sound of water, and the unpleasantness of the slippery feet that made the captain's voice sound somewhat subdued as he held up the torch. As the light from the torches shone, they could see a large, creepy torque that had been disturbed in its slumber, and bats that had apparently entered the underground, panicking and fleeing into the darkness.
The knights did not seem to be enjoying their task. Whenever the bats rustled their wings, Janus chants and curses from spider webs could be heard, and the captain did not dare try to control them.
Guin, on the other hand, seemed to be numb, paying no attention to the desolate scene around him, but walking on his feet. The most unconcerned among the group was the prisoner himself.
The captain looked at them with an anxious look and made the sign of Janus, but then, as if without warning, the passage ended, and the road began to ascend again. And before they had gone very far, with the clatter of their iron boots on the stones, there suddenly appeared from behind a pillar a man in a black cloak like a wandering ghost, and even the stout-hearted Black Knights of Gora almost screamed.
"Thank you."
Vernon, the Black Count, said in his usual gruff, ghostly voice.
He had taken off his armour and put on a deep cape and cloak instead. Underneath, Guin saw that his head, face, and hands were wrapped in thin iron plates, as if he were in a cast. The Count beckoned to them awkwardly, as if they were nothing but huge dolls made of iron, but he kept his distance and refused to come nearer, probably for fear of arousing the fear and disgust of his men, so that his figure seemed all the more ghostly.
"I've made the arrangements. Bring the Leopard to me."
Guided by the beckoning ghost, the group continued down the corridor and eventually entered what appeared to be an underground hall. It was an empty stone-built room supported by similar columns, but at the far end of the room there was a grand piece of furniture that was more than a little eye-catching.
However, they are not all so comforting - tools for torture such as a wheel-ripping table, a huge stone furnace, a water torture tank, a spinning wheel, a whipping post, an iron needle torture doll, and so on.
In front of them were two or three slaves in chains, sluggishly preparing for the order with a gesture that seemed to indicate that they no longer felt hope or despair.
The Black Count did not pay any attention to him and passed by the creepy collection. The knights followed. Guin walked by them unmoved, the smell of fresh blood on his nose not affecting him, but inwardly he was thinking that it would not be a pity if he did not test the performance of these tools on his own body.
But that was not his purpose, at least not for the moment. With his usual jerky movements, the Black Count walked to the far wall and pressed one of the stones.
The stone wall slowly opened to the left and right, revealing a large, bleak room on the other side.
There was neither torture nor execution table there, but instead, if you think about it, a more hideous and horrible creature was locked in a cage in the back, holding onto the bars, eyes burning red and roaring.
"The Great Ape of Gavur-- the Grey Ape."
Guin looked sideways as the captain muttered lowly and cut the sign of Janus.
If Guin had not lost his memory and had known what the grey ape of Gavur looked like, he would have lost all hope with a single word, not to mention seeing its horrible fanged mouth, the muscles of its upper arms bulging enough to tear any human apart, and its small eyes glowing with a red and vicious light, as if the devil himself were nesting in them, The gray monkey of Ghabour could have lost all hope with that one look. The grey ape of Gavur, like all creatures created by the demon dhole, is a man-eating eater, and has an unparalleled taste for the slow tug and tug of live prey.
But to Guin, it was just a huge, boisterous great ape - a fierce and formidable, perhaps, but in short, a lowly and filthy beast. Even if it were not so, the leopard's head covering Guin's head did not allow any of his inner feelings to be detected by the change in his expression. The knights gently cut the sign of Janus, but some of them, seeing Guin standing there with his unshaken bearing, showed a secret admiration for his boldness, while others spat hatefully at him.
The Black Count, for his part, looked at the foul beast as if it had come out of a nightmare, and seemed apparently satisfied with the bold response his captive had shown him.
"Get down there, slave."
Insolently he commanded, slowly pointing to the steps leading to the wide stone paving in front of the cage.
Guin looked slowly from side to side. He looked as if he were trying to decide what to do, whether to rage against the twenty knights here or to follow the Count's dubious intentions. The monster stumbled impatiently, and the knights tried to poke him with their spears. Guin shrugged his strong shoulders, and, shaking his body as if he did not care, he avoided the points of the spears which were poking him, and calmly advanced and went down the stairs.
When the Count saw that Guin had gone down, he pressed the button on the wall again. Then the stone steps flipped over and became a wall with no way up. When the Count pressed another stone, the wall that had just been opened came up from below, like a coliseum looking down on a cellar from above, and separated the Count from his place.
"Listen, on the count of five, I'm gonna open that monkey's cage."
The Black Count gravely pronounced and took the hourglass from the folds of his cloak and placed it on the partition.
"If you can hold on to him with your bare hands while this hourglass falls three times, I'll throw you a dagger. If you hold out for two more, I'll throw you a greatsword. The better fighter you are, the greater your chance of survival. I'm a fair man and a good fighter is valuable. If you fight Gray Ape with your bare hands, I'll reward you with as much silver as you weigh.
Come on! Let me see how you fight, Leopard man!"
Vernon, the Black Count, slowly pressed the last button, and the iron bars began to rise, creaking,....
The great ape of Gabor, bewildered by the sudden freedom granted to him, let out a tremendous howl, but immediately his red, foul, malevolent eyes caught the leopard-headed warrior!
With a ragged breath, Oozaru turned to face him. Guin now had no other choice but to fight.