Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle by Richard Lupoff

this room. Perhaps the vision of the flaming, hellish inferno was an illusion, a trick designed to mislead him. But he did not believe that was so. Still, he carried his saber yet. He could draw it, possibly take Philo Goode prisoner, force him to reveal what he knew, force him to reveal a safe means of egress from this trap.
    But Goode
had
revealed a safe means of egress. Or such was his claim. The longer Clive pondered, the more convinced he became that Goode's suggestion was the only reasonable course of action for him to follow.
    He rose from his chair, adjusting his tunic, saber, and cap, and stood over the open trapdoor. "If this is a trick, Goode, I warn you, sir—I have survived perils that you would not believe."
    "I must differ with you, sir. I know more than you could possibly realize. I would believe everything you could tell me. That is the only reason you are here this night, sir, and the only reason that I offer you the opportunity that now stands at your feet."
    "Nonetheless, if this staircase represents still another act of treachery on your part, Goode, I will extract from you a dear price indeed!"
    "And I shall pay it gladly, Major Folliot. Now, if you see no further need to delay…"
    Clive set his polished brown boot upon the first step of dank gray stone.

CHAPTER 7
But the Smallest Hint
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    The steps led downward into darkness, curving in a spiral that swiftly carried Clive into the unknown. He paused for a moment to glance upward. The open trap had shrunk to a tiny square, had done so far more rapidly than Clive would have expected.
    Even as he stood gazing up, the square of light disappeared. Apparently Philo Goode had slammed shut the trapdoor, if he turned back, Clive suspected, and climbed the steps once again, he would find the door unmovable from below.
    Not that he had any intention of turning back. He had committed himself to a course of action, and if there was one thing he had learned through his adventures in the Dungeon, it was to press ahead. Always, to press ahead. Peril might lie in his path, doom might await him. But no matter what the odds, there was always a chance of success. There was nothing to be gained by turning back. Surely not now.
    Although the steep staircase led through darkness, there was a sufficient emanation of luminosity from the steps themselves to guide his feet. Clive set a steady pace for himself, neither counting steps nor attempting to calculate the passage of time. Eventually he would come to the end of his descent, and then he would find out what lay beneath Philo Goode's establishment.
    Something brushed against his face and was gone. He wondered what it could be—a bat, perhaps. Some dark-adjusted creature flying through the blackness here, as much at home in the subterranean gloom as Clive would have been on his father's estate in Tewkesbury.
    At length he emerged onto a level patch of flagstones. Here panels of illumination in one wall revealed that the stone flooring ended abruptly. There was a low drop, then a roadbed of sorts.
    As if in response to Clive's presence, although he wondered if the timing were coordinated or merely happenstantial, he felt a rush of cold wind and heard a sound that grew from a soft
whooshing
to the scream of fast-driven wind.
    He turned to see a lighted car barreling up the roadbed. It appeared to be made of glass or some similar transparent substance, molded over a framework of metal. He could see within the car a passenger compartment bearing a solitary traveler. The car resembled those of the train he had encountered first on the plain of Q'oorna and then again in the arctic waters of Earth.
    The car slid to a halt. Clive could hear its engine pulsating like a living heart.
    He looked toward the passenger compartment, started violently, then ran at top speed to the car. The passenger swung the door open and called to him. "Clive!"
    "Annie!"
    Without hesitation he jumped into the car. The young woman stood