Kothar and the Wizard Slayer

by Gardner F Fox

  The mists had come in off the Outer Sea, the cobbles and the marble paving slabs were wet with water. The two moons of Yarth were hidden behind dark clouds. The slap of a rising tide against the pilings and the bulkheads echoed the faint pad-pad of their boots as they hastened through the gray fog and the dampness, which the sea wind made swirl about their persons.

  Red Lori reached out, caught Kothar by his sword-belt. “Not so fast, Cumberian. We others have not your long legs. It would be easy to get lost in such a fog.”

  Kothar slowed his pace, letting his thoughts run faster than his feet. He knew the witch-woman was moving on a course that might not be pleasing to him. Yet she had promised to rid him of that curse of Afgorkon by which he could own no treasure but his sword Frostfire. He was a little tired of an empty belly for days on end, when his belt-purse was as flat as his middle. He would relish golden coins clinking in that almoner, and the prospects of hot meals and cold ale every night.

  And so he plodded onward through the grayish mists, deeply sunk in reverie, headed nothing but his own troubled spirit, until—

  “Haiii!!”

  Two men up ahead in the mists, one leaping at another, with the gleam of bared steel in a hand. The second man, tall and lean, shrank back, crying out in dismay.

  "Die, damned sorcerer! Into the depths of Eldrak's seven hells with you!"

  To see was to act with the barbarian. He lunged forward, glad of this bit of action with which to dispel his gloom. His hand darted out, closed fingers on the wrist of the hard that held the dagger. His muscles bunched, swung the man sideways off his feet and into a building wall.

  A face contorted by rage and fear stared at him in horror as the man sought to free his wrist. Haggard eyes half sunken in a skull-like face peered up at the towering barbarian. A thin mouth writhed blasphemies.

  "Let me go, fool! I but rid the world of a thing better dead—a misshapen excrudescence of utter evil! Let be, I say!”

  “What is it?” gasped Red Lori.

  Cybala shrank backward, found an arm about her lissome waist. Her eyes turned sideways, studied the profile of the youthful warrior beside her. His sword was in his hand, there was a faint smile on his lips. Cybala was breathing harshly, leaning her weight deeper into his embracing arm.

  He glanced at her; their stares locked. The dagger fell clattering to the cobbles of the narrow alleyway. With a hoarse cry of fear, the man who had held that dagger turned and ran off into the fog. They heard his footsteps pounding, then fading before the surging rush of the surf not far away. The wind moaned as it swept around the corners of these buildings.

  The tall, lean man in the black mantle still leaned against the damp bricks of the house wall, breathing harshly. The barbarian bent, picked up the fallen dagger.

  “Why did you let him go, Northlander? He was death—that one! Saw you not his face, his eyes?”

  Kothar scowled. "Now why should he have tried to kill you? What wrong have you done him?"

  "No wrong, not I. For I am Antor Nemillus, mage and necromancer to Midor, King of Sybaros!” He came away from the wall, drawing himself to his full height, his flashing eyes stabbing the mists toward Red Lori and Cybala, and drifting over Flarion for an instant.

  His thin lips quirked into a smile as he swung back to the Cumberian. "I owe you a great debt, barbarian. Name your price for your service, and be not humble in your demands—or I'll take it as an insult. The life of Antor Nemillus is worth a kingdom to that man who saves it.”

  Kothar shrugged, then became aware that a hand tugged at his cloak. He turned, saw Lori oddly shy, almost cowering back into the warmth afforded by the bodies of Cybala and Flarion.

  "Safe conduct, Kothar—safe passage for us anywhere in Sybaros and its adjacent waters,” she whispered.

  Antor Nemillus heard her words and laughed harshly. "Are these my rescuers? More cut-purses with their doxies? Ah, but—no matter. Even a thief can earn a reward for a great service. Here....”

  A hand fumbled in a belt pouch, brought out a copper disc inlaid with enamels of varying colors. "My sigil, known the length and breadth of Sybaros, on land and on the sea. It will save you even from—the king's guardsmen. But use it wisely or—it may bring your doom.”

  The lean man folded the fur mantle about his narrow shoulders and went striding off into the fog. A few moments the barbarian watched him, then those rolling mists hid him from sight. He glanced down at the copper piece he held, studied the intertwined enamels on its surfaces that so much resembled a serpent folded back upon itself.

  “The amulet of dread Omorphon,” breathed the woman.

  "Oh? And will this see us safe against soldiers and lesser wizards?”

  “It will. Give it here.”

  The Cumberian slid the disc into his purse and grinned. "Nay, now. Let me keep it, my red beauty. I'd feel safer with its weight on my person.”

  She laughed up at him, caught his hand and squeezed it. "Trusting Kothar! Always you see specters where there are none. But come, it moves toward midnight.”

  They went swiftly through the mists, light reading, and with their cloaks flapping about them as the wind blew more strongly at the pier where Wave-skimmer was docked. A sailor in a striped jersey and ragged culottes was waiting for them beside a crude plank. He steadied the plank as Red Lori and Cybala ran across. When Flarion and Kothar were on deck, he moved across the plank himself, and lifting it, secured it to two pins inset into the fore-rail.

  "I'll show you to your cabins,” he muttered.

  Wave-skimmer as a brigantine. The two masts towered high over their heads as they made their way aft behind the sailor, the sea wind rustling between the yards and snapping the shrouds in their chocks. The salt smell of the sea was everywhere. The ship appeared to sway slightly underfoot as the waves heaved and swelled beneath the keel.

  "A rough night,” whispered Cybala. The seaman heard her, laughed. “We’re still tied to the dock, mistress. Wait until we get out beyond the reefs. There'll be rough water there or I miss my guess.”

  Cybala moaned, and Flarion took advantage of her momentary weakness to slip an arm about her middle. His own belly was none too steady, he was a landsman, not a deck-swabber. He followed where the others led, enjoying this movement of intimacy with the black-haired dancing girl, the touch of her middle, the awareness of swaying hips that brushed his own her sweet scent and the soft breathing that seemed like music to his ears.

  A white door opened, revealing a small cabin lit with a single candle. "Your room, master,” he said to Kothar and nodded also at the woman. "With bunks for you and your lady.”

  Red Lori swept into the chamber, letting her cloak slip onto a table. She took the lone candle in a pale hand, touched its flame to other wicks set here and there. The light flooded the compartment, showed it neat and trim, with two bunks set into opposite walls and a table between, riveted to the wooden bulkhead.

  She turned, ripely curved in the leather jerkin and short skirt, and gestured at the sailor before he could close the door. "I'll want to see your captain, Grovdon Dokk. I must tell him how, to set his course.”

  The barbarian followed her out into the companionway, up a flight of wooden steps and into a cabin set under the quarterdeck. Oil lamps burned brightly as Grovdon Dokk wrote with a scratchy quill pen in his open log.

  He glanced up frowning as they entered, but nodded when Red Lori made their mission known. Stepping to a table fitted with boxed compartments, he selected, a scroll and bore it to a table, unrolling it, spreading it out.

  “Where away, lady?” A red fingernail scratched the parchment. "Set your course here, captain.” His surprised look made her smile. “Yes, it is empty sea. But it is there I would go and—cast anchor.”

  Grovdon Dokk rubbed his stubbled jaw reflectively. “You pay the fee, I'll not quarrel with you. But it seems senseless lady. To travel to the islands now, or even south into Ispahan, would make more sense.”

  “To you, perhaps. N
ot to me. It is there I would go, and where you shall take me.” The fingernail tapped the chart imperiously, and Grovdon Dokk shrugged.

  Kothar waited until they were in their cabin before he muttered, “I’m of a mind with the captain on this, red one. What do you expect to find on the open sea?”

  "Not on, dunderhead. Under!”

  His face brightened. "Ah! Sunken treasure. Of course. A ship, eh? A galleass that went down beam-end first in a storm? A treasure ship of King Midor, that was making its way homeward from the spice islands?”

  Her laughter rang out as her fingers went to the lacings of her placket. In a moment they were undone, and he caught the sheen of candlelight on creamy skin as the blouse slipped from a rounded shoulder. She preened a little before him, proud of her beauty, her desirability as a woman.

  “None of those, Kothar,” she said softly. "What we seek has not been seen by men for many thousands of years.”

  He sat up straighter on the bench where he was easing off his war-boots. "No ship? What, then?”

  “The lost city of Hatharon, Kothar. Aye, that city where Afgorkon was born, where he made his spells, where he enchanted the world about him. The greatest magician of them all. Even today, fifty thousand years after Afgorkon lived, his fellow mages revere his name.”

  She was lifting her short skirt, stepping out of petticoats, thrusting down the velvet placket with the loose lacings. Her body was firmly ripe, so lovely as to make the barbarian feel the tide of his manhood sweep through his veins. Long red hair hung to her hips, her skin was pale satin and gently rounded here and there.

  "Girl, I don't understand you,” he rasped.

  She turned her face, staring at him inquiringly. “You should hate me, by all rights. Since, we met in Commoral in your magic tower, I've turned your wickedness away from those you'd injure. It was my fault you were hung in a silver cage, and later. I put you into that tomb with dead Kalikalides.

  "And—yours isn't a forgiving nature.”

  Her laughter rang out. "You are mine, barbarian. I’ve told you that-even while imprisoned in that silver cage. You'll recall how you saw my face in the bottoms of your tankards and peeping out from your campfires? How I talked to you even then?”

  "Aye, you said I was yours to do with as you would.”

  “And you still are.” She took the sting from her words by stepping closer, bending to catch his cheeks between her soft palms and setting her red mouth to his. "I think you have always belonged to me, Kothar—even while you were fighting me in my tower, battling the demons and goblins with which I sought to kill you.”

  "You fire the blood in a man,” he rumbled.

  Her nimble fingers eased the lacing of his mail shirt, held it so he could slip out of it. She aided him to remove the leather hacqueton he wore beneath the mail, and playfully tweaked the blond hairs on his deep chest. She was like a dutiful wife, he thought, tenderly loving and heedful of his every wish.

  He could not still the uneasiness inside him, however, even though he feasted his eyes on her nakedness and his lips tingled to her kiss. This was not like Red Lori; it was as if—she played a part. He would almost rather see the anger-flames in her bold green eyes and hear her soft voice grow shrill with curses on his head. Yet a part of him relished this attention she gave him, even as his body hungered to draw her down between the sheets on one of the bunk-beds

  Then he was naked as she and she was clasping his hand, drawing him toward the bunk, bending to blow out the candles one by one until only the moonlight came into the cabin to silver their bodies. Kothar caught her to him, held her close as his mouth feasted on her lips.

  They toppled sideways onto the covers.

  Some time during the night the barbarian woke to find the ship creaking, dipping to the swells of the Outer Sea as its great sails filled with the blowing winds. The rocking was pleasant to him, snug in this bunk with Red Lori within the crook of an arm. He grinned and drew her even closer. Let the gale moan and the ship lift and fall to the surge of the sea waves, he was content.

  Morning was a golden radiance in the cabin as the barbarian threw back the covers and leaped to the middle of the room. Behind him Red Lori squirmed and muttered protestingly as she sought the fallen blankets and drew them closer.

  Kothar said as he drew on his kilt, "It's long past dawn, girl. Come share a platter of fish with me.”

  "Go eat, you big ox. I'd rather sleep,” she murmured.

  He studied her flushed face, the thick red hair spread on the pillows. By Salara of the bare breasts, she was a woman, this one! Her embraces were all any man might want, her kisses things of fire. Never yet had the barbarian sought to ally himself overlong to any one woman. Those he had known in his wanderings—Miramel and that tavern girl in Murrd, Mellicent, and Laella, who was a dancing girl out of Oasia, and Queen Candara of Kor, and the brunette woman, Philisia, who had been a king's mistress in Urgal—had been but passing fancies, linked with the dust of the lands of their birth, so far as he was concerned.

  But with Red Lori, it was different.

  He shook his head against what he considered a streak of softness in himself. A sell-sword and wanderer had no time to spare for such sentimental things as love and marriage, nor a family, either. He was a mercenary, with his steel blade he earned his livelihood.

  And with the curse of Afgorkon forbidding wealth to him, what sort of woman would even consider him for a husband? Nah, nah. A woman might take him for a lover, but nothing more.

  In this frame of mind he went up deck-side, to pause and study the gray sea heaving on all sides. The ship rode easily, its prow cleaving the frothing waves, the white sails bellied outward with the wind. To his surprise he saw Flarion leaning against the starboard rail, staring dead abeam.

  He put his hand to the youth's shoulder. “Come join me in a platter of fish, comrade.”

  "I have no appetite.”

  "The ship rides smoothly enough.”

  “It isn't the ship.”

  "Ah, then it must be the belly-dancer. She wasn't kind to you last night. Did she consign you to your own bunk? And stay in hers until morning?”

  "Something like that, yes.”

  "It's just as well,” the barbarian growled. Flarion swung around. "Now what, makes you say that?"

  Kothar shook his head. He could scarcely tell the youth that Red Lori had marked the girl for sacrifice to one of her demon-gods. Better to let him suffer now, for a little while, then later when her death would put Cybala forever beyond his reach. He himself did not intend to let the red witch carry out that plan, but he knew her well enough to realize that if her mind were set on Cybala’s death, then Cybala would die. He moved off down the deck, his nose telling him where the galley was, the smell of cooking fish stew and broiling fish steak making his mouth water. The oceans teemed with succulent game fish, ripe for eating over hot coals or an oil flame, and few ships that plied the Outer Sea carried more than salt pork and flour and condiments in its food bins. The sea was all around them, and any sailor could dangle a line with a baited hook.

  He found half a dozen men at the galley benches, and selected a wooden mug, filled it with the stew, caught up half a loaf of bread and perched his big bulk before a wooden table. He ate voraciously, for his great body needed much food to sustain it, and twice more he filled the wooden bowl before he was content.

  He went out on deck and stood watching the sea toss and surge beneath the keel. He felt no sickness, he was like iron in his middle. After a time, Red Lori came to join him, wrapped in her woolen cloak.

  The wind blew her red hair free, so that it tickled his face when he bent to hear her words that the same wind threatened to bear away with.

  "I say that once there was a continent below our keel, Kothar. Or part of a continent. This sea here covers what was once part of Sybaros and Tharia, a massive plateau that stretched outward for many miles. At its tip, jutting into the ocean, was the port city of Hatharon.”

  “
Where Afgorkon was born.”

  “And where he practiced his wizardries. In what remains of his ancient lodging, in that tower where he kept his chests and scrolls, I hope to find his famous coffer of magic formulas and special incantations.”

  “And once you've done that?” She looked up at him, laughing. "Then I can free you from his curse, barbarian. And—do what I must do.”

  “What goal have you set yourself, Lori the Red?”

  "To save the magicians of Yarth! Or haven't you heard that someone is slaying them all, very coldly, very systematically? Aye, last night in Zoane, when you rescued Antor Nemillus, was an instance of the wickedness now flourishing in the land.”

  Kothar scowled. “Why seek you Afgorkon's belongings?”

  "He was a wizard. He must help his kind. I would summon him, Kothar, speak with him. If anyone knows how to stop this slayer of sorcerers—he will!”

  The barbarian remembered the lich in the hidden tomb within the forests of Commoral, who had given him the sword Frostfire. An unease sat in his middle as he let his memory run on that rotted thing that had been a living man five hundred centuries ago.

  “He will not like it,” he muttered. "But he will come. Oh, yes. He shall come to my call.”

  “Only at a price!”

  "The girl, Cybala. She will appease him.”

  “Flarion won't like it,” he rumbled. “The boy's half in love with her. He moons over her constantly.”

  Her green eyes flared. “You think he'd—kill me—to save her?”

  The massive shoulders lifted and fell. "You do what you think is right, to save the lives of your fellow sorcerers and wizards. Perhaps Flarion may do what he thinks is right, too.”