The Warrior Returns - Anteros 04

by Allan Cole

  The immense vistas were enough to make me want to bolt—to leap over the cliff face if necessary.

  Zalia clutched my arm and I breathed deeply to steady my nerves.

  While I calmed myself I remembered seeing the yard and the mountain road from another perspective. I peeped out at the lake and saw the familiar rocky far shore where I'd hidden with my men so long ago and had observed the mines and foundries of Koronos for the first time.

  I looked at the docks again and noted the absence of Magon's golden ship. I guessed he'd left, and I wondered if Novari had returned to their capital with him.

  Thinking about Novari helped me steady myself, and I was soon able to plod along passively with the others. A dull shambling slave on the exterior, while on the interior my mind was ablaze with curiosity, observing and storing every detail for possible later use.

  As we came around one bend I saw the Bear Temple towering over the city. It seemed quiet. Maybe even empty. Then I felt a buzz of magic and knew wizards had to be at work. Not Novari, though. I would've sensed her immediately. And I wondered: Where was she? What was she up to?

  It was about a mile's walk to the bottom and about another mile to our destination.

  The factory they took us to was built of plain, rough stone blocks. It had no chimney or any remarkable features at all, other than the big, double-gated doors we were heading for. The building was long and extremely low, but as soon as we entered I saw that the bulk of it was underground. Six floors in all, I learned, for that's how many flights of steps we descended to reach the main forgeroom.

  It was a terrifying place. The dim light had an eerie orange cast to it, and the whole building throbbed rhythmically as if an immense heart was beating just beyond the walls. The sound was a big drum backdrop to the shriek of hot metal plunged into water, hissing steam, chains clanking, hammers hammering, and—so distant it could be from the Otherworlds—what sounded like faint screams.

  We shuffled through huge rooms with racks of golden swords and spears and shields. I could feel sorcery radiating from them and knew they were made of the same material as my eyepatch. Once, we swung close to a rack of swords and I snatched a hungry look at their keen edges and apparent light balance. I ached with the impulse to dash for the rack, grab a weapon, and lay waste to the guards.

  The impulse was replaced by sudden foreboding that those weapons might soon be wielded by the enemy against my own people. The anxiety made me quicken my step. I had to act— and soon.

  I bumped into the slave in front of me and he snarled, "What's your hurry, sister? It's to Hellspoint you're goin'! What'ja think it was, the chow line?"

  I slowed my pace but continued to shift my head about, studying the might of my opponent, my anxieties growing with each thing 1 saw.

  On the sixth and final level, we came to immense golden doors set in stone that were stained black with grease and smoke. The doors were so dazzling, so polished and clean-looking, I knew they had to be made of Novari's magical material.

  We stood there waiting as the guards unlocked our chains.

  "Remember what I told you, Rali," Zalia hissed. "Do exactly as I say at all times."

  I nodded and two huge guards, naked to the waist and streaming sweat, muscled the doors open.

  A blast of heat nearly knocked me over. I gagged at the acid stench of the air. It burned my throat and seared my lips.

  Before I could recover my wits, we were all kicked and pushed through the doors. Bewildered, I saw the guards step swiftly back outside. They screamed for us to get to work, then slammed the doors shut, closing us in.

  Hellspoint was so hot you couldn't toil there for more than an hour at a time. Each shift in that chamber was limited to an hour. Then you had an hour's rest while another slave crew suffered inside before you were forced back into the forge-room to take their places.

  Slaves were worked to the point of collapse, driven by special guards who changed crew every fifteen minutes. Other slaves dragged you out to recover while a second group manned the forges. During our rest periods we were given copious amounts of cold water to drink and pour over ourselves. This was not a sign of kindness in our masters. It was a necessity. Without the rest and the water, we'd have died quickly, and then who would do the work?

  The chamber was huge, filled with machines belching fire and steam. Slaves staggered past pushing wooden platforms on rollers stacked high with long, thick bars of natural gold.

  The rods were hauled to an immense machine that commanded one whole side of the forgeroom. They were loaded onto a wide, clattering conveyor shaped like a shallow trough; it carried the rods into the machine's fiery maw. Another conveyor swept out from behind the machine through a large area that glowed and shimmered so it looked like the conveyor was emerging through curtains.

  But instead of golden rods, the bottom of the trough was covered with a film of glittering dust.

  It was from this dust, Zalia later told me, that the magical material was formed. That the material Magon's ship and weapons were made of—and my wondrous eyepatch.

  Slaves moved along the final leg of the conveyor, hauling big portable bellows on rollers that were valved so they reversed the flow of air. Flexible hoses sucked up the gold dust, which was drawn into large gray jars that Zalia later said were made of sugar. The jars were fed into another forge, the sugar vanished, and the dust became a thin golden sheet that could be stitched like cloth or worked and reshaped like metal.

  The swords, for example, were formed of many layers, turned back on one another repeatedly until the blades were perfect.

  I saw the chamber in dim snatches stretched out over what seemed like the eternity the gods reserve for the condemned. Guided by Zalia, I loaded and unloaded bars. Helped pump out the dust and lugged the filled jars—which were amazingly light—to other slaves who carried them away for storage.

  The heat and noise drained every speck of energy, so you felt like you were swimming in hot porridge. It was an effort just to lift your arms, much less the murderously heavy rods. I was doubly punished because the sorcery pouring out of the magical forge seared my senses, withering them with blast after powerful blast.

  Somehow I managed to get through the agony. At the end of the day one slave was not so lucky. It was the fellow who'd cursed me for being in such a hurry. He'd suffered a seizure in the final hour and lay there flopping on the floor until a bored guard lazily motioned for us to haul him away. He breathed his last as I lifted his arms. It was a long sigh, and in my imagination it was filled with the sound of vast relief.

  When I heard it I thought, May the gods be with you, brother. Wherever you're going, it can't be worse than this.

  They hosed us off with some sort of chemical that stung the nostrils and made the skin look as red and chafed as if we'd spent a week under a desert sun.

  The man's sigh still echoed in my thoughts when the day was done and I finally staggered into the cell and collapsed on my stone shelf.

  I heard Zalia moan as she sank down on hers.

  "Now what in the names of all the gods who curse us was that worth?" she groaned. "Except to dig our graves deeper and longer."

  I wrenched myself up, favoring sore muscles I didn't even know I possessed until I'd entered Hellspoint. But my spirits were returning, so I managed a grin as I said, "Cast your eyes on this, my friend."

  And I extended my mortal hand.

  Zalia's eyes widened when she saw the gold dust packed under my nails.

  "Should make a nice little pile when I clean them," I said.

  "I thought you wanted to steal a piece of the finished material," she said, puzzled.

  "I did," I said. "But I saw right off it wouldn't work for what I have in mind. Besides, it would take too much in its finished form. Novari or one of her minions would notice its absence."

  "You're going to use the dust itself?" she asked, giving me an unbelieving stare.

  "That's exactly what I plan," I said. "And it ought n
ot to take more than a dozen trips to get enough."

  Zalia was aghast "A dozen trips!"

  "Maybe more," I said. "Although I hope not."

  "I pray not," Zalia breathed. "I pray to all the gods past present, and future—if there is a future worth having."

  I laughed, trying to make light of our ordeal, but it had a hollow sound to it.

  Later, when I cleaned the gold dust from under my nails, it made a heap that was depressingly small.

  AS ZALIA HAD feared, it took more than a dozen trips to Hells-point to obtain what I needed. It was easily twice that number, and each hour we labored in the forgeroom was a torment I dislike to recall.

  I consoled myself by thinking that at least I was alive enough to curse the experience. Although why Novari had let me live still puzzled me.

  Did she really feel more revenged by condemning me to this miserable existence? And how long would this humiliation satisfy her? Also, if she was using the mines to soften me up so I could be bent to her will, how soon would she come for me? There were many other questions, all variations on the same theme, which was wonderment that I lived at all.

  Zalia had still another theory. "Perhaps Novari can't kill you," she said. "Not without coming to some harm herself."

  At first I scoffed at this. "I don't think so, my friend. She was perfectly capable of killing me any moment she chose. Why, she nearly slew me when I attacked her. Several of her own men were killed when she cast that spell. And since I was on the receiving end, I can swear on any holy object you choose that it was definitely not only death-dealing but meant for me."

  "Ah, but you attacked her" Zalia pointed out. "That only proves she can defend herself against you. But maybe she's forbidden—if there was some sort of curse, say—to act directly. She can't command your death. But she can put you in circumstances that would certainly be guaranteed to lead to your death."

  "That's a possibility," I admitted. "But only a vague one."

  "It's as good as any reason you have," Zalia said. "Perhaps even better. I've had much more time to study her. It's my kingdom that's threatened directly, after all."

  I cocked my good eye at her. "Your kingdom?" I said.

  "I, uh, mean my queen's," she stuttered. "Queen Salimar's."

  "Aha!" I chortled. "So that's her name? By the gods, woman, I finally got something out of you!"

  She flushed. "What of it?" she mumbled. "I was getting ready to tell you anyway."

  I gloated. "Riight!"

  Zalia clamped her lips and said nothing more that night.

  I knew my victory had been a childish one. But in Koronos it seemed as pleasing as any other I'd had in a long time. And I was childish enough to take satisfaction in recognizing just how infantile Zalia had been as well when she'd whined, "I was getting ready to tell you anyway."

  Well, the laugh's on you, woman, I thought.

  The laugh's on you.

  WHILE I GATHERED the dust I also gathered information about our prison.

  I immediately noticed a certain looseness in the mine's security. Certainly there were guards everywhere. And we were frequently chained together, especially when we exited the mines and were herded for Hellspoint.

  Yet it seemed to me the reasons for being chained had little to do with fear that we'd escape. The artificial hands would ultimately stop even the most determined slave. Plus there was the sorcerous gruel that all the slaves, except Zalia and myself, were addicted to. No, the chains were to protect us from harming the guards or ourselves when freedom was dangled before us and hysteria set in.

  Mostly, if we kept to our own warren, we were left alone during the hours we were allotted each day for eating and sleeping. And it was fairly easy to visit other nearby warrens. All you had to do was walk past a few warren guards, who would give you a bored glare, then wave you on. Many times those guards would be momentarily absent or even asleep. No one seemed to care. The metal hand bolted to your wrist would prevent any real mischief.

  You especially tended to be ignored if you were an "old-timer." The death toll was so high that those who survived a year were marked by their sheer endurance as being safe. An old-timer could talk from the corner of her mouth and be heard or observed by no one but the person she was speaking to. An old-timer knew how to absorb a blow or a lash and suffer the least harm. An old-timer knew how to snatch a few seconds to rest, how to study the guards' moods and know when a little blatant shirking might be in order. Old-timers knew the system. And the system worked best if you rolled with the punches and watched for small openings to grab a bit more food, a bit more comfort, a bit more life. You could add up the little store of extra life that you gathered second by second.

  Like the grains of sorcerous gold I was stealing from Novari's forgeroom.

  While I gathered the dust, I made a tool. It was an ordinary rat bone; long, thin, and quite straight. I cleaned the marrow out so it was nicely hollow. Then I polished the hollow with a rough thread I'd taken from my smock. Night after night I pulled the thread back and forth through the bone until it was nearly paper thin. For a while Zalia watched me, curious. But I made certain she knew I'd turn away any question she asked and she soon lost interest.

  Daciar was right. Secrecy comes as naturally to a wizard as the ethers she commands.

  One night I returned from Hellspoint so exhausted I could barely eat. The magical blast from the forge had been particularly intense that day, and my mind felt like crushed ore being fed down a rock slurry chute.

  I fell asleep before I even cleaned the precious dust from under my nails. I simply sprawled on my stone bed, and darkness leaped up and carried me away.

  I drifted, dreamless, for what seemed like a long time.

  Then a soft cry crept into my peaceful slumber. It was faint and echoing and full of pain, like the cries you heard when entering Hellspoint. In my dream I had a sudden desire to investigate, to find that person and comfort him. I reached out with my good hand—the hand with the gold grime under the nails—and I felt a force drawing me like the moon draws the seas and makes the tides.

  I let it take me, and my spiritself floated free, hovering over my slumbering body.

  Again I heard the faint cry. I ghosted toward the sound, slipping through the stone walls, moving as freely as if I were rising from the bottom of a deep pond.

  I burst to the surface, coming out under a full moon. I felt the moon tug at my hand and I lifted it and saw my fingers were all aglow. I marveled at the glittering power of it, feeling energy surge and purpose grow.

  I floated down the mountain road invisible to the sleepy guards and continued along the path until I came to Hellspoint. It was black under the bright moonlight, low and menacing like an iceberg broken off from some evil field.

  The forgeroom drew at me more powerfully than the moon, and I kicked free and went to it, wisping through stone and metal doors until I came to the great machine itself.

  The chamber was empty and the conveyor belt was still.

  But the sorcerous fires continued to roar, drawing me to the shimmering curtain that divided this world from the ethers.

  I stopped there, pulling back against the outgoing tide of energy.

  Once again I heard the scream. It seemed closer. And then another scream joined the first, and then another and another until there was a whole chorus of tortured souls howling from the hells.

  I closed my good eye and found I could see through the curtain. It was like looking through a telescope into the Other-worlds with an ethereye.

  All was wavering fire at first, then the scene came into sharp focus.

  There were scores, perhaps hundreds, of souls twisting in agony as flames of blue and green and yellow licked at them from every side. They were kept in place by long magical chains which they fought against ceaselessly. Some were twisted in coils of chain, sobbing to get free. The souls were of men and women and creatures whose form I couldn't make out, and they were all screaming and moaning in horrible pa
in.

  I knew immediately that they were wizards and other beings with sorcerous powers. And the chains were spells created by Novari to hold them captive.

  Those wizardly souls were all slaves laboring in Novari's special hell—just as I labored in her mines. But by the gods, it was worse. Worse than I have powers to describe.

  One of the spirits saw me and cried louder. I looked closer with my ethereye and saw with a shock the familiar face of Searbe.

  My missing Evocator was missing no more.

  He struggled toward me, crying my name. I wanted to help him but I couldn't let myself be drawn into Novari's private hell. He stretched the chain, struggling to come closer.

  Then he screamed in greater agony and powered himself forward until the magical chain was taut and he was hanging just beyond the shimmering curtain. He was so close that if it were the real world, I could've reached out and touched him.

  "Save me, Lady Antero!" he cried. "Save me!"

  "1 will if I can, my friend," I said, as calmly as I could. "But I won't torture you by promising. I don't know that I can even save myself."

  Despite his pain he had a sudden crafty look on his ghostly face. "I can be of much value to you, Lady Antero," he said. "I know Novari's plan."

  I'd forgotten how transparent Searbe could be. And I wondered mightily at my own judgment for ever trusting him.

  "Then tell it to me," I said. "The knowledge may help me free you."

  "Oh, you can't trick me that easily," Searbe said.

  "Why would I do that?" I said. "You're one of my own."

  "Because I betrayed you," he said, with only a tinge of shame. "And I betrayed Orissa."

  "You were forced," I said. "I won't hold anything you revealed to Novari against you."

  Searbe hung his head. "I was weak," he said. "I was afraid. And then she promised... she promised ..."

  "You don't have to tell me what sort of promises a suc-cubus makes, Searbe," I said. "I wish you hadn't succumbed so easily. But all of us are not as strong as others. I, for one, won't judge how much forcing another can take."

  "I'm no coward!" Searbe protested. "Don't think that of me!"