by Vitaly Zykov
Rual ran up to the foot of one column and hissed. Yarik came closer and stopped in amazement – before the beast was lying a mummified limb of a once-living being. To be more precise, it was a hand. Moreover, it was a hand of a being well-known to Yarik. The slave squatted and began to examine the remains. The same flakes, black claws and strange joints – there was no doubt – before him lay a limb of a raptor-man. It was weird that the cut was perfectly straight, just above the elbow, and the rest of the body was absent. It seemed that fingers were still trying to scrub the stone floor, trying to reach an unknown goal. Yarik looked at the stone columns and froze on spot. There were bas-reliefs.
Yarik stroked Rual and tried to read the stone image, and immediately involuntarily winced – an inexplicable feeling of disgust filled his soul. When he started to realize what he saw, that feeling intensified and enriched with an unpleasant chill nestling somewhere in his neck and bristling his hair now. The images awoke such animal instincts as fear or even terror.
Usually, a picture, especially a stone one could not be taken as something serious, it could not scare, but here it was different. They seemed just ordinary plain images of various creatures, some scenes, everything as usual, but why did they force him to shudder?
On the column Yarik counted about forty pictures with human-shaped figures (with two hands, two legs and a head) – it was impossible to say more precisely. The creatures performed various actions differing from image to image. On one picture these creatures, surrounding a taller figure, were bowing to it, on the other picture the same figure was shredding its companions into pieces with something long and resembling a sword. Sometimes the creatures fought with a variety of beasts, in other cases, the same beasts helped the creatures in battles with other figures. On one of the pictures Yarik recognized with surprise the schematic figures of a raptor-man and a raptor-centaur. On other pictures the creatures were just sitting, and over their images was a mesh of small dashes, forcing the images to blur – it seemed that the unknown artist strove to show dissolution of the creatures in some unknown substance. The top picture was telling about a battle of some bony figures with one creature in a robe or a mantle hiding his body. The striking lightnings and crumbling stones were depicted quite realistically here… It was just usual stone carving, but reaction to it was completely incomprehensible.
Suddenly Yarik felt an obsessive desire to run away. The tension hanging in the air turned into a wave of panic and feeling of some deadly threat ready to pounce. The waves of the threat could be felt from all sides. Rual who feared nothing suddenly hissed and began to seek protection from his owner. The animal ran up at Yarik's shoulder and tried to dive into his owner's bosom. Bemused Yarik unbuttoned his collar, and the animal with a squeak ducked inside, and settled there quietly. Yarik jumped to his feet and ran back.
Already running he heard some eerie howls in the darkness ahead. Man could scream like that only before an inevitable, all-consuming and all-pervasive terror and genuine nightmare created by a sick mind which suddenly came to life. Then a menacing crunch mixed to the screams which became even louder… Then Yarik ran out straight to his comrades. They stood completely naked in the circle of light of their lanterns lying on the floor and were shouting wildly. All three of them! The first thought was: «Why are they naked, why all their belongings and clothes are lying on the stone floor?» – But then Yarik saw the main thing. People were standing choking with howling and popping their mad eyes into the darkness as if a hurricane was blowing at them. They were staggering and shaking, and looked as if little bugs were running under their skin. And most importantly, they were looking like «blurred image», as it happens when you feel dizziness. Yarik remembered the picture on the column, it was blurry too…
The smell of a great evil struck his feelings, it was the Evil with a capital letter. Not just the sense of hostility and personal rejection that occurs to everyone, but the one of complete alienness, implying the impossibility of co-existence. It was the primordial and eternal Evil. Yarik acted then without thinking, as if he knew exactly what he should do. Perhaps it was the most reckless action in his life. He jumped to his comrades.
It felt like his flying body as if got into jelly. The ordinary air acquired viscosity and density. A many-voiced whisper appeared in his mind. The abomination of voices sounding in his head poisoned his mind and soul. He wanted to curl up and howl. As if some small needles tingled his whole body, there was a feeling, like someone was trying to get inside. But Yarik was ready for something like that. He fenced himself from the alien voices, and began to fight against the hostile will: his trained mind was repelling the enemy, while the latter was trying to destroy Yarik's barriers. Hailstones of sweat were running down his face. Yarik began to realize with horror that he may not survive in this fight, that in a few seconds he would be the fourth standing next to the bandits…
But his legs continued to push the body forward. With each new step Yarik was approaching the people shuddering in agony. The purpose and meaning of this movement were already forgotten, but he continued this deadly fight for each new step. So imperceptibly Yarik reached his former companions, and his hands made three powerful blows, the fatal blows. The bones cracked, and Yarik felt a wave of the enemy's confusion. The bodies stopped trembling, and rushed to the floor, and Yarik felt with some sort of sixth sense the relief of the liberated souls.
He saw it as if in a slo-mo: here the head of one body leaned back and the body began to fall, then the other two began to tilt too. Yarik's legs were carrying him toward the exit. Each new step was easier, the death of the first three victims weakened the unknown enemy severely. The kord did not miss his chance. The bodies had just fallen, when he already was running away in the darkness, restoring the route in his memory…
Later, already in the familiar catacombs of the urban sewerage, Yarik felt hot trickles running down his chest. It turned out that terror-struck Rual had torn the skin on his owner's chest. When Yarik met Darg, the latter listened carefully to his slave and looked at the slave from head to toe in a new way. The nomad only nodded to Yarik's bold words that he would never go down into the deep levels of the dungeon again. A little later he ordered Yarik to look at his reflection in a pool with clean water. The kord did so. He saw that among his newly regrown hair appeared a lot of gray strands. The nightmarish monster left a memo for his escaped enemy. In the depths of Yarik's consciousness remained one more recollection of another stone image he had seen briefly: a four-armed androgynous creature with empty eye sockets, whose feet were trampling strange signs and instead of jewelry it was wearing a raptor's skull on its chest. Yarik also remembered the scratches made by nails, the scratches which formed such familiar hieroglyphs. There was no chance to read the phrase, but its meaning was felt instinctively. «Horror! Death! Evil!» – was the message that the perished raptor-man had tried to report. And his message had found its destination. Yarik knew what the real Evil was, the Evil against which the creature attacked the three bandits seemed like a light breath of darkness before the storm of the Abyss…
After that case Yarik became more careful. Every hole he regarded now as a direct access to that nightmarish beast, and this, of course, added unnecessary stress to his life. Nevertheless Darg continued to send him to various gangs for recruitment and for intimidation. The slave was never asked whether he liked this kind of job or not.
That day Yarik was as usual engaged in «recruiting» members of one independent gang. He was guiding new recruits to the gathering place, like a shepherd leads sheep. Next to him were walking his helping bandits. Armed with heavy knives, in tight leather jackets, they were strikingly different from the vagrants looking around with scared eyes. Though a few weeks ago they looked exactly the same! Suddenly, the collar transferred the feeling of a strained, twitching leash. Yarik ordered his «wards» to continue moving to the gathering place, dived into a side pass and ran in the opposite direction. The master called him to the wasteland on the e
dge of the city.
Half an hour later he climbed through a small cleft on the top of a hill and ran in full force to his master's call. The latter had been waiting for a long time already.
– What took you so long? – He asked dryly.
Yarik muttered something vague, peering intently into the face of his master: it was unusually pale.
– Are you wounded, master? – asked Yarik finally.
– It does not matter, what is more important is that the thieves have betrayed me to the Guard, and they found me. They do not have a mould of my aura – I took care of that, but we need to go. – Darg spoke with a strong irritation, then kicked a bag at his feet. – Here are your new clothes, but first you should wash yourself and shave off your hair. You have fifteen minutes. In half an hour, we must be at the station.
Yarik did not ask what the station Darg meant, and rushed to the river. The fact that it was winter, did not bother his master. Here, winters were warm, of course, without snow. But it was not hot at all! So when they moved briskly back to the city, Yarik hardly restrained himself from running until he twigged to make his blood run faster with a simple act of will.
The station turned to be the bubble ferry. Fifteen farlongs per ticket plus a separate fee for meals and baggage. Previously Darg could not afford it, but he changed a lot since that time.
Generally, the bubble station or bubble ferry looked like a very tall tower, about fifteen yards height, a spiral staircase was leading to the top of this tower with open platforms called piers. Air bubbles which were the local analogue of airships docked to the piers. The overall design was slightly different from the airships that Yarik had seen on the pictures on Earth. There was no propeller, and the part responsible for volatility – a bubble or a balloon – was only two times larger than the cabin beneath it. On Earth, this cabin was called gondola, but locals called it deck. Small bubbles had one deck, when heavy bubbles had two or even three decks. This miracle of local technology was brainchild of both magicians and engineers too. The whole construction had the lasting scent of protective magic. As Yarik found out later, hydrogen was used as the carrier substance and magic artifacts significantly reduced the weight of a deck allowing to reduce the size of a bubble.
The most magically protected part of transport bubbles were the balloons with hydrogen. They had no hard shell and the upper part was a gigantic bag made of thick fabric. In the magical vision these balloons looked like interweaving energy threads that were powered from the pulsating heart in the middle of one deck. The power concentrated there was impressive…
Darg climbed first up the high steps. Their bubble was at the top of the tower, on the seventh passenger's tier. In general, the interior was simple or even poor: bare walls, stone steps and wooden railings. There was even no carving. Yarik thanked unknown gods for absence of baggage. Richly dressed, Darg had only a small rectangular leather bag for papers slung over his shoulder and faithful saber on his belt. Yarik had nothing, the bag in which Darg had brought new clothing for his slave, was now full of stones and peacefully resting on the bottom of the river. The only slave's load was his four-legged friend: Rual was snuffling quietly in Yarik's bosom.
They reached the seventh pier unexpectedly, after some walking they suddenly got to the mooring in the open air. A bubble has been waiting the passengers for a long time already. On the side of a hanging cabin was written «Grape bunch». To enter into the cabin it was required to pass over a wide ramp which was hovering at high altitude. Despite the railing, the walk over these ten yards long boards which seemed so unreliable, evoked cries certainly not of delight in some people. When Darg and his kord came out on their platform, they just saw how a noble lady with her maid or chaperon were going over the boards. The lady dressed in a long dark green traveling dress, with a veil pulled over her face proceeded into the bubble cabin with aristocratic negligence, her modestly dressed chaperon behaved completely different. She froze in the middle of the ladder, and frantically clutching the railing, was whispering something under her breath. A hefty guy – maybe a bodyguard, following after her, lifted the frightened girl easily and brought her inside.
Yarik grinned at the sight of this scene… and received a severe blow into his face from his master.
– You are loosing it, kord! I mention this for the umpteenth time: slave does not dare laugh at a freeman! Never! – Darg said it in absolutely calm voice, as if talking about the weather. – Got it?
– Yes, master, – Yarik said exactly emotionless, calming down Rual who went furious. – I understand everything, master.
Darg went first, he was going with easy steps, holding the bag with his hand. Yarik followed, for him it was not difficult to go over the ladder. Such a trifle as fear of heights was left far behind, on Earth, it was much more difficult to cope with hatred constricting his throat.
Their cabin differed from the cabin in the passenger wagon by slightly larger size, everything else was exactly the same. It was only that the beds were not two-leveled, but they were still located on either side of a wide viewing window. The passenger cabins were located on the second deck, the lowest one. The numbering here was top-down, and the first cabin was directly under the bubble – it was the deck with cabin crew, the captain's bridge, the engine room and the storage room. The airship had a medium size, and had no cargo holds. «Grape bunch» had seven crew members and could take up to forty passengers. The crew included the captain, the navigator, the magician of the fourth rank, responsible for maintenance of the ship's magical equipment, two sailors and two stewards, one of whom served as a cook. The cook-galley was located on the passenger deck, next to the ladder leading to the first deck. Along the sides of the cabin were the impressive water tanks. When the bubble descended the water from converted hydrogen gathered into these tanks, then fuel was taken from them to fill the balloon with hydrogen. This system was characterized by forethought and finesse. In an emergency, bubbles could even sit down on the ground – in this case all of the hydrogen had to be bound with oxygen, but this scheme demanded a great amount of energy for takeoff, and was threatening for ship integrity.
During the flight Darg spent all time in the saloon at the bow of the ship. The most of the passengers gathered there and entertained themselves by talking, playing cards and dice. Yarik could judge about that only by scraps of others' conversations – the saloon was not a place for slaves. The most part of the flight Yarik was sitting in the cabin, occasionally coming to the observation deck at the stern. He could stand there for hours looking at the escaping land. The beauty of landscapes was fascinating. Their speed was about seven miles per hour, there was no jerks or «air-pockets» so familiar from books. The latter was due to either the design features of the aircraft, or the use of omnipresent magic.
Sometimes Yarik encountered with other passengers in the corridors of the deck, in such cases he had to perform an obligatory ritual – to kneel down and leaning his fists on the floor, stand in that position until an aristocrat or a merchant passes by. It was pleasing that with representatives of the lower classes he could behave simpler. There was no such ceremonies on Sarduor, but here everything was different. On the fifth day in Jugha Darg led Yarik to a man who taught the kord the basics of a slave's behavior. Here were strict rules for slaves – how to walk, how to dress, how and what to say – all that was regulated by a set of rules.
Darg had to wear a foreigner's tag on his neck. All foreigners were obliged to wear these tags in the countries of the United Protectorate. Besides that, as he did not belong to the military class and was not a nobleman, Darg wore his saber with sealed hilt. So he had no chance to grab his weapon quickly now. Yarik saw these details concerning his master only on the airship, before Darg lived simply as a rich citizen of Jugha.
This fact explained why Yarik had shaved bald before boarding, and even rubbed into his head an odorous ointment which was given him by his master, the ointment was delaying growth of hair and giving the skin bronze col
or similar to tanned human body. The kord was dressed now in a shirt of coarse fabric, trousers and fleece mouse-colored jacket. The collarless shirt revealed his neck with the slave's collar. Heels of the kord's new strong shoes thudded each step when he was walking.
But the main thing was behavior rules. To walk with downcast eyes, to not speak at a free man without permission, to keep his hands along body or pressed to his chest, his face had to be impassive, he had to speak quietly and calmly. Meeting a noble man in a narrow place he had to perform this humiliating ritual. The last made Yarik just boil with anger, but no single muscle in his face flinched, just the way it should be.
Once Yarik encountered that aristocratic lady in the dark green dress in the aisle. She actually seemed to prefer green colors, or at least, some autumn colors – variations of yellow and orange. An invariable veil hid her face, only her bright like spring greens eyes were shining through the finest fabric. The manners of this, obviously, young lady were distinguished by grace and inner dignity, there was feeling that she was accustomed to being the center of man's attention and knew her own worth. Seeing this woman, Yarik fell to the floor, just barely having seen her appraising look, that examined his whole body, paying special attention to the slave's collar. The woman proceeded towards the saloon with gently rustling clothing, her bodyguard walking behind like a shadow. The cold look of his indifferent eyes ran appreciatively over the young slave, as he followed his mistress.
The name of the lady was Melisandra, and her chaperon was Olivia. The bodyguard had the name Jack, which fit perfectly his grim temper. Yarik made no effort to know all that, it was enough to go to the galley for lunch for himself and his master and just listen to a conversation between two stewards. So he knew the fact that Olivia was wildly afraid of height and she was lying in her cabin all the time, he also knew that Jack was extremely unsociable and just for asking about his wards could beat up a too nosy man. Nonetheless lady Melisandra was a constant topic of conversation on the transport bubble. Who she was, why she wore the veil, what she was hiding – all these questions raised just unimaginable versions. Fantasy of gossipmongers had no limits, but, as it always happens in such cases, the truth was somewhere near, but still escaping from incompetent catchers…