To Ride Hell's Chasm

by Janny Wurts

  ‘Too dangerous,’ Jussoud supplied from his place beside Taskin’s litter. ‘It was a man with an uninitiated mind who struck the first bargain with demons. A meddling fool, he bound over his mortal destiny to tap power from the unseen. The result has flung open the gateway to horrors. All sorcerers, and the lines that extend their foul works, descend from such dreadful mistakes.’

  ‘How can I fight what I can’t understand?’ Captain Bennent cracked in frustration. Though bolstered by an escort of ten men-at-arms drawn from the roster at Highgate, he disliked the need for such secretive haste. The act of moving his king on a litter, wrapped in an anonymous blanket, made him feel foolishly vulnerable.

  The guard captain sat on the remedy chest, and raked his nervous glance upwards. Late night fog had rolled up from the valley and swallowed all trace of the stars. The looming bulwark of Dedorth’s tower was lost as well, the only tangible sign of its presence the moisture that dripped from the copper-clad roof. ‘Every instinct I have says we’re suicidal to risk sealing ourselves up in a place that has no escape route.’

  ‘But you can’t hope to battle a sorcerer, headlong,’ Jussoud retorted. ‘Sheer lunacy, even to try. Your unlucky casualties are not going to die. Each soldier fallen becomes a spirit enslaved, living coin to maintain the sorcerer’s unholy pact with the demon who delivers his power from the unseen. The demon, in turn, keeps his bound minion alive, an unnatural immortality fashioned to fuel its insatiable appetite.’

  ‘Trust Mykkael’s experience. He gave you sound guidance.’ The Fane Street physician straightened up with the cedar-laced torch brightly blazing. ‘You must have a defensible refuge to hold out until help can be sent in deliverance.’

  ‘What help?’ The seneschal sniffed, displeased to be kept from his bed, and only reluctantly present to support the exhausted Duchess of Phail. ‘Another sorcerer will just happen by and shoulder King Isendon’s rescue?’

  ‘Powers, no! Why do you think sorcerers’ wars are so devastating?’ The Fane Street physician handed the torch off to a guardsman, mopped his round face, then crouched to strike sparks to another. ‘The demons that drive them are inveterate rivals. Two such bound minions upon the same ground will tear at each other, ripping the innocent earth to destruction.’

  ‘Worse than using more fire to fight fire,’ Jussoud allowed, sounding tired. Many sorcerer’s lines had begun with a man who thought to dabble with danger for a cause; sound rulers cozened to buy bargains from demons for defence, only to discover themselves as evilly ensnared as the enemy they had striven to defeat. ‘The less time we spend in the open, the better.’

  Bennent reviewed the disparate party his skills had been charged to defend: a litter-borne king, a gravely wounded commander, two elderly, opinionated courtiers, and two mismatched healers, with only Vensic and the select pair of men-at-arms from the king’s chamber able to bear weapons in active engagement. The ten guards just recruited carried no protective talismans. That made them no better than unshielded targets. Set under attack by the powers of hell, how could he mount a defence?

  He must have spoken his frustration aloud, for the Fane Street physician served answer. ‘The west has learned viziers, men who study lore for ways to balk sorcery. The tribes of the steppes and the southern desert train shamans, initiate talents who perceive the world of the unseen. They are the allies of the beset.’ The last torch ignited. The remaining guardsman accepted its burden, while the flushed little scholar shoved up his slipped spectacles, and stood. ‘You’ll send a petition to ask for their favour. Or else join your cause with a kingdom or country willing to sign an agreement of shared defence. Mykkael’s experience must see Sessalie’s princess through, and then guide her to act as your realm’s ambassador.’

  The seneschal turned his chalky face, horrified. ‘Rely upon Mysh kael?’ A disreputable desert-bred, lamed and on foot, armed with a sword and a handful of blow darts. ‘Powers of mercy, we’re lost.’

  Vensic shook his head. ‘Mykkael’s a fit adversary. I wouldn’t care to be wearing the shoes of the man who attempted to kill him.’ He steadied the poles of Taskin’s litter, prepared for Bennent’s brisk order to march.

  Inside the glow of five cedar torches, and five more alert guards who advanced with drawn swords, the company pledged to save Sessalie’s freedom reached the postern of Dedorth’s tower and started ascent of the worn spiral stair.

  XXV. Encounter

  CAPTAIN BENNENT LEFT TWO RELIABLE GUARDSMEN POSTED OUTSIDE THE TOWER DOOR. THEY STOOD UNDER ORDERS TO SECURE THE ENTRY, WHILE the king’s entourage filed inside, their progress delayed to a crawling pace as the litters were manoeuvred up the spiral stairwell. Outside, the mists slowly thickened. Droplets splashed down from the eaves overhead, slicking the courtyard cobbles. Sheltered from the cut of the wind, the smothering stillness seemed to diminish the distant shouts of the fire crews, labouring yet to douse the inferno that swept through the royal apartments.

  Something scraped across metal, high overhead.

  ‘You hear that?’ The guardsman who spoke stepped out to investigate. ‘Think it’s a rat?’

  ‘Up the tower?’ his fellow said, dubious. ‘On the roof, man? How could a blighted rat get up there?’

  The faint scratching persisted, the sort of disturbance a rodent might make, gnawing the marrow from an old bone.

  The other guard shoved back his helm. ‘No varmint I’ve seen could climb a sheer wall.’ He peered aloft, yet saw nothing through the choking mantle of mist. A fallen droplet splashed his upturned face, ice-cold, followed by a second that was sticky and warm. ‘Mercy!’ The soldier shuddered, then gasped, ‘That’s someone’s fresh blood! Run! Shout up the stairwell and warn Captain Bennent. Tell him we’ve got dire trouble.’

  The guardsman’s cry arose from the base of the tower. Though the words were blurred to unintelligible echoes, the note of alarm carried clearly. Two litters borne in single file ascent effectively blocked the tight stairway. Completely cut off by the curve of the walls, Captain Bennent could do little but send the last man in line to investigate. He had to wait while his order was relayed downwards. Just past halfway up the narrow tower, he trailed his advance guard of four Highgate men, bearing swords and cedar-laced torches. Behind him, wheezing in sour complaint, came the seneschal of the realm, assisting Lady Phail’s frail balance. The litters bearing Taskin and the king worked slowly upwards below them.

  Bennent swore under his breath. As a tactical trap, this place was a living nightmare. His men were like dominoes poised in a chute, awaiting the first dropped marble.

  ‘Stand fast,’ he called to the bearers below. ‘Pass word to halt down the line.’

  The unwieldy column stalled in its tracks, the magnified scrape of hobnailed boots fit to set teeth and nerves on edge. More noise trailed upward, voices lost in the welter of echoes, as his worried scout addressed the rearguard. Bennent gripped his sword in frustration. He could not decipher the mishmash of words. Worse, the sentry must have left the lower door panel ajar. The updraught flared the guardsmen’s held torches to rippling sheets of fanned flame.

  The tangling confusion almost masked the patter of footsteps, descending the stair from above.

  ‘Ware, forward!’ called his leading guardsman.

  ‘Report!’ shouted Bennent. ‘What’s coming, above us?’

  The front-line torchbearer responded with reassurance. ‘Stand down. There’s no threat. We’re being joined by Prince Kailen.’

  The crown prince addressed them a moment later. ‘You guards! Douse those torches, at once! May the powers of the trinity preserve you from harm, didn’t Lord Shaillon inform you? Cedar smoke acts as a beacon for evil. Would you draw in a sorcerer’s spell lines?’

  ‘There, so I told you!’ the seneschal snapped. He abandoned Lady Phail to the support of her cane, then badgered his way past a sword-bearing guard to reach Captain Bennent’s mailed elbow. ‘We’ve dragged King Isendon through unspeakable hardship, all to no us
eful purpose!’

  ‘Quiet!’ cracked Bennent. To his vanguard, he added, ‘Close ranks, douse nothing! I’ll make my way up.’

  The crown prince’s startled reply floated down the narrow stairwell. ‘Is that Bennent? Captain, are you seriously ordering the palace guard to stand against royal authority?’

  ‘Highness, I act under direct command of your sire. Every cedar torch in this company stays burning.’ The palace guard’s ranking officer pressed upwards, spurs jingling, to back up his men at the forefront.

  Poised above, Prince Kailen leaned on the rail of the landing that fronted the doorway to Dedorth’s quarters. His left arm was raised, half shielding his eyes. Under the sudden, bright spill from the torches, any man’s vision would become dazzled, if he had been using the glass in the darkened observatory upstairs.

  ‘Who turned the king’s mind?’ Crisp, sounding irritated, the crown prince held his ground. ‘The risk you are taking with Sire’s life is unimaginably dangerous.’ The flow of the draught wafted smoke up the stairwell. Kailen coughed, still protesting. ‘Douse those torches, I say, on pain of treason.’ As the fumes coiled higher, his Highness straightened and clambered several steps upwards. ‘Why aren’t you listening? His Majesty could take harm, even die for your bull-headed negligence!’

  Bennent watched, chilled to caution. ‘Stay close!’ he ordered his leading guardsmen. Then he passed word downstairs for the trailing members of the company to close up their position without straggling. He believed himself braced for whatever might come as he faced forward again, and addressed the disgruntled crown prince. ‘Highness, pay heed to your sire’s informed wisdom. Accept my protection and come down.’

  ‘Madman! Fool!’ Kailen’s voice grated as though he had just inhaled pepper. ‘You’ll see us all slaughtered!’ More smoke winnowed upwards. For a second, the prince’s rich clothes seemed to billow, as though the form of the flesh underneath rippled into convulsion. He folded, gasping, fingers shoved through his hair.

  ‘Mercy, what’s wrong with him?’ asked the torchbearer, confused. ‘Has his Highness taken ill?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bennent answered. Beyond doubt, the influx of torchlight and fumes seemed to be causing the unnatural affliction. ‘Move up,’ he instructed his uncertain guardsmen. ‘Slowly Carefully. Weapons ready! Hold those lit torches ahead of you.’

  ‘Stay back!’ The prince gagged through shut teeth, all but crushed to his knees as the smoke roiled over him. His face jerked and spasmed. His eyes seemed to shine, a yellow reflection that might have been tears, or something else that presaged an uncanny danger. ‘On your life, Bennent, I beg you! Don’t touch me!’

  ‘What’s happening!’ the seneschal shrilled up the stair. ‘Captain! Do something! His Highness appears to be choking.’

  The guard captain stayed firm and ignored the plea.

  ‘This is obstruction!’ The seneschal clawed upwards, tried to shove past the guard, but found himself jerked short from behind. He glanced backwards, annoyed, and discovered Lady Phail standing on the furred hem of his council robe. The move was not oversight. Her insistent expression suggested his protest would fall on politely deaf ears.

  ‘Trinity save us!’ cried a guard, from above.

  Faced forward again, the seneschal recoiled in revolted horror.

  Through the billowing smoke, the smooth skin of Prince Kailen’s face darkened as though touched by a blight. The growth spread, glittering like black glass, then sprouted into a stubble of pointed jet scales.

  ‘Bright powers of daylight,’ the seneschal shrieked. ‘Your Highness, run! You’re under attack by a sorcerer’s catspaw! Captain Bennent is casting a spell on you!’

  ‘Shut that raving idiot’s mouth!’ Jussoud called out from below.

  ‘Lord Shaillon, be still!’ snapped the Duchess of Phail. When the seneschal kept shouting, she raised her silver-tipped cane and jabbed the courtier’s back. With his trailing robe still pinned by her jewelled shoe, the old man could not step forward to recoup his balance. He toppled on to his hands and knees, momentarily knocked speechless with outrage.

  Before he could whimper, the nomad resumed his frantic instructions. ‘Bennent! Right now! Your guardsmen must use the salt water and ashes!’

  A bucket was passed hand to hand up the stair, followed fast by the pillowcase holding the charred remnants of the cedar that Vensic had burned in the warming pan.

  ‘Hurry!’ cried Bennent, unable to suppress a revolted shudder.

  Before their shocked eyes, the crown prince was losing the semblance of his humanity. Each billow of torch smoke altered his shape. His handsome male features melted away, blond hair transformed to spiked scales, while lips and mouth distended and grew the muzzle and fangs of a predator. His bone structure become cruelly pointed and lean. Neat velvets and lawn shirt strained taut, and then shredded as the upper body enlarged with a grotesque bulge of muscle. The manicured hands curled beneath the remains of the dapper, voile cuffs were no longer a man’s, but a hooked set of ripping, spiked talons.

  The two guards bearing torches shrank, sweating and sick, while the swordsmen behind backstepped, dumbstruck.

  ‘Hold your ground!’ Bennent shouted, shaken to fear, as the thing in the stairwell crouched on its haunches, and clawed boots and breeches to shreds. No man, now, but wholly monster, it shrieked and launched to savage the guards at the forefront.

  The demonic apparition charged down upon them, just as the passed bucket reached Bennent’s hand. He doused the sloshing contents over the guards’ heads, then snatched up the pillowcase, shoved in his arm, and lobbed a handful of ashes. The dry, gritted powder sifted out of the air, and clung to the salt-dampened skins of his two exposed point men.

  The unmasked minion behind Sessalie’s crown prince emitted a squalling screech. It wrenched its leap short, hissing and snarling with fury. The salt water and ash mix appeared to repel it. Wherever it encountered a dusting of ash, its gleaming jet scales became scalded.

  Spared by the grace of Mykkael’s instructions, the panicked lead guardsmen surged to attack with bared swords and live fire. The monstrosity scrabbled ahead of their rush, swiping its cinder-scored flesh. Smoke hazed it. Harried by the torches, it twisted in sinuous fury, lashed its tail, then streaked with a skitter of claws up the stairwell beyond the landing.

  ‘After it, go!’ Jussoud yelled from below. ‘Wound it from behind, as you can. If you force it at bay, beware! It’s likely to sprout wings. Bennent, if that happens, they’ll need your bowman. Shoot to kill with the copper-tipped bolts.’

  ‘He’s too far downstairs,’ the captain despaired. His line of march had prepared for assault from behind, with those men protected by talismans positioned as rearguard in the expectation that pursuit would arise from the palace. No one’s ugly forethought had ever imagined Dedorth’s tower might already be primed with an ambush. ‘Call down!’ he appealed to Jussoud. ‘Have the archer’s weapons passed upwards.’

  Not all was lost. His lead guardsmen from Highgate had steadied their shocked nerves. They now advanced in well-disciplined step, armed with cedar-laced torches and swords. If ashes and salt served as natural banes, their banishing properties would not grant the men an impenetrably secure defence. Mere simples could not deflect a spell line with the shielding efficacy of a talisman. Yet the surprise incited by Mykkael’s stopgap measures had wrested back room for hope. Given the courage to enact a prompt foray, four armed men might prevail and accomplish a dangerous kill.

  ‘Stay close, keep together,’ Bennent cautioned the duchess. He held the line, though his anguished frown bespoke his desire to bolster the rush of his guardsmen. ‘Keep all torches lit. We’ll regroup on the landing and take respite in Dedorth’s chamber. Taskin and his Majesty can be settled in bed. We’ll defend our position until we have word the top floor of the observatory is clear.’

  ‘Lord Shaillon, pull yourself together!’ Though shaken herself, Lady Phail helped the seneschal recove
r the wits to rise to his feet.

  ‘Mercy!’ The older man raised palsied fingers, brushed grit from his cloak, then distractedly rubbed his scraped palm, as though the raw sting might be dismissed as an errant fragment of nightmare.

  ‘You’re not going to wake up,’ Lady Phail said, acerbic. ‘Best face the unpleasant fact quickly’

  The seneschal stared upwards, searching the gloom of the upper stairwell. ‘Powers of daylight! What was that monstrosity?’

  ‘No power of daylight!’ A quaver shot through the duchess’s vexed tone. ‘Nor was the foul spell cast by one of our own.’ She planted her cane, squared thin shoulders and blinked, eyes damp in the haze of the torch smoke. ‘I think we now know why our princess has fled. Small wonder she took no one into her confidence, with such evil at large within Sessalie.’ Overcome, finally, the old woman blotted her lids with the back of her wrist.

  As much in need of solace as she, the seneschal tucked her fingers over his dishevelled arm. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured. ‘You raised that boy. We all did, since the queen’s death.’

  ‘Such promise, all gone,’ Lady Phail murmured. Assailed all at once by deep loss and regret, her inveterate bravery crumbled. ‘Mercy deliver our poor Kailen!’ Remiss at the last, her seamed cheeks streaming tears, the duchess faced down the stair. She tilted her head in crisp homage to Vensic, who bore up the poles of the commander’s litter.

  Their eyes locked through a moment of poignant honesty, and the shared torment of unspeakable tragedy.

  Then, as though poised with her usual aplomb, the old woman awarded the son of a pig farmer a noble-born gentleman’s courtesy. ‘Young sir, your captain shall have my sincere apology for rank insult and thoughtless misjudgement.’

  The garrison man flushed ruddy pink, then tipped her a heartfelt, grave bow. ‘Then, my lady, for the sake of Mykkael’s maligned honour, my task is made plain. I’ll have to be sure you survive the debacle to address my captain in person.’