Limits by Larry Niven (tohfa e dulha read online TXT) 📗

“I am delighted to hear it. My shovel’s still on the horse. Shall I go for it?”

“Yes. No, wait a bit.” He started walking, staring at the talisman. “It must be deep. Yards deep. More. Forget the shovel, there must be a cave under us.” He grinned savagely at her. “We’ll have to find the entrance. We’re almost there, love. Come on.”

They trudged down the hill, trying to avoid twisted ankles or worse. Sparthera paused to catch her breath and caught a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye. It was headed for the animals. “Sung! What—”

Twilight whinnied in terror. He tossed his head, pulling loose the reins Sparthera had looped over a bush, and bolted downhill. The unicorn had splayed his front feet and lowered his head, as if he thought he still owned a spear. The winged packbeast, filling the air with a bedlam of sound, was bounding rapidly away in two-pace-long jumps, tiny wings beating the air frantically.

Sung let out a yell and charged up to the top of the ravine, swinging a heavy branch he’d snatched up on the way. Sparthera clambered up beside him, swearing as she saw her animals heading off across the landscape. There was a loud wailing sound that put the wingbeast’s efforts to shame, and then silence. The thing had vanished.

“What was that!”

“I don’t know. I’m more interested in where it went. Keep an eye out, love.” Sung pulled his sword from the pack and wandered about the shattered rock.

Sparthera’s nose picked up a heavy musky animal odor. She followed it, heart pounding, knife in hand. They were too close to the treasure to stop now.

The odor was wafting out of a black gap in the rocks, less than a yard across. Sung clambered up to look.

“That’s it,” he said. “It’s not big enough, though. If we crawled through that, the thing—whatever it is—would just take our heads as they poked through. We’ll have to move some rocks.”

Sparthera picked up a heavy boulder and hurled it away. “I feel an irrational urge to go home.”

“I can’t go home. Let’s move some rocks,” said Sung, and she did. The sun had dropped a fair distance toward Rynildissen, and every muscle in her body was screaming, before the dripping, panting Sung said, “Enough. Now we need torches.”

“Sung. Did it…occur to you…to let me rest?”

“Well, why didn’t you…oh.” Sung was disconcerted. “Sparthera, I’m used to giving orders to women, because I’m supposed to be the immortal Sung. But it’s just for show. I’m also used to being disobeyed.”

“I can’t.” She was crying.

“I’ll be more careful. Shall we rest, have some tea?”

“Good. Offer me a swallow of wine.”

“That’s not—”

“For Khulm’s sake, Sung, do you think I’d go in there drunk? It’s in there. I know it. I kept waiting for it to jump on me. Don’t you have a spell to protect us?”

“No. We don’t even know what it is. Here—” He turned her around and began to massage her neck and shoulders, fingers digging in. Sparthera felt tensed muscles unravelling, loosening. It was a wonderful surprise.

She said, “It must have half-killed the Sung women to let you go.”

“Somehow they managed.” She barely heard the bitterness; but it did bother him.

It was dark in there. The late afternoon light only reached a dozen paces in. They stepped in, holding the torches high.

There was a rustling flurry of motion and a loud whimpering cry.

If one of them had run, the other would have followed. As it was, they walked slowly forward behind Sung’s sword and Sparthera’s dagger.

The cave wasn’t large. A stream ran through the middle. Sparthera noted two skeletons on either side of the stream, lying face up as if posed—

Another cry and a scrabbling sound. Something huge and dark moved just outside the perimeter of light. The animal odor had become sickeningly strong. Sung held the light higher.

Off in a corner, something huge was trying to pack itself into a very narrow crevice. It looked at them with absolute panic in its eyes, pulled its long scaly tail closer under its legs and tried fruitlessly to move away.

“What in the world is it?”

“Nothing from this world, that’s certain,” Sung said. “It looks like something that was conjured up out of a bad dream. Probably was. Gar’s guardian.”

The creature was partly furred and partly scaled. It had a long toothed snout and broad paddle-like front paws with thick nails. There was a rusted iron collar around its neck, with a few links of broken chain attached. Now its claws stopped grinding against rock, and its tail came up to cover its eyes.

“What is it trying to do?” Sparthera whispered.

“Well, it seems to be trying to hide in that little crack.”

“Oh, for the love of Khulm! You mean it’s scared!”

The beast gave a long wailing moan at the sound of her voice. Its claws resumed scratching rock.

“Let it alone,” Sung said. He swung the torch around to reveal the rest of the cave. They found a torn and scattered pack, with the remains of weevily flour and some broken boxes nearly collapsed from dry rot. Two skeletons were laid out as for a funeral. They had not died in bed. The rib cage on one seemed to have been torn wide open. The other seemed intact below the neck; but it was still wearing a bronze helmet bearing the crest of a soldier of Rynildissen; and the helmet and skull had been squashed as flat as a miser’s sandwich.

Aside from the small stream that ran between them, and assorted gypsum deposits, the cave was empty.

“I’m afraid the Regent’s army got here first,” Sung said.

Sparthera bent above one of the bodies. “Do you think that thing did this? Did it kill them, or just gnaw the bodies? It doesn’t seem dangerous now.”

“It probably wasn’t all that scared in the beginning.” Sung was grinning. “Gar must have left it here to guard the treasure, with a chain to keep it from running away. When