Kothar and the Wizard Slayer

by Gardner F Fox

  There was a silence. The whisper came again. “I feel pity, for my brothers in magic. Yet Afgorkon has withdrawn himself from those lands which once knew his name."

  “His name! This is all I ask, great wizard. Peer into the astral planes surrounding our own. Speak his name only—and leave the rest to me. And to my man-slave, Kothar!”

  "Ah, Kothar. Is he with you? Yes, I see him—and his sword Frostfire, which was forged in the primal ooze by certain—devils—of my acquaintance. How like you the sword, barbarian?”

  “I like it,” said Kothar. Afgorkon chuckled. "Aye, even though with it, you are pauper! I see it in your eyes. your blade is the only thing in life you love.” There was a little silence, then the mage breathed out words again in that hoarse voice, faint with far distances. "I shall look as you desire, woman who has waked me. Not for you, but for the sake of those who are my kin in warlockry.”

  Red Lori still knelt, and now she leaned forward, touching her forehead to the base of the eidolon, crying, "My thanks, great mage!”

  The cabin was still. Kothar realized that the face of the eidolon was not here in this world, but in those many-faceted lands that surround Yarth in which the demons dwell, and those of the elder race of gods in which are reflected, like objects in a dark glass, the deeds done in his world. Long the eyes of Afgorkon looked, long was the silence in the cabin.

  “I see death,” said the voice of Afgorkon. "Death from the rusted daggers and rotting swords of those who have gone before. Up from their graves they have been summoned by dire spells, to slay such mages as are marked for death by him who would destroy them.”

  “His name, great Afgorkon? His name?"

  "I know not his name. Nor do I see his face in these other megacosms through which my eyes wander. He had protected himself by mighty enchantments against such knowledge becoming known.”

  Red Lori wailed, “Then how may I stop him?”

  "Go you to those other warlocks whose lives are threatened. Gather them together, induce them to perform spells: I will aid them—if I can. The assassin has enlisted powerful forces against us. How he protects himself from my eyes, I do not know—but I will attempt to learn.”

  The voice died out.

  Red Lori rose slowly from her knees, and in the lamplight her face seemed haggard, worried, as she turned it toward the barbarian. “I was sure he could tell me, I was so sure of it! Now . . .” Her shoulders rose and fell in resigned despair.

  "If this means so much to you, why not follow his advice? Go to the magicians who are threatened, employ their help.”

  She stared at him coldly. “If Afgorkon cannot help, how can they who are not one-tenth the magician he was—and is—in those fifty cosmic lands of his?”

  “What have you to lose? Besides, Afgorkon may help you.”

  She considered him with her stare, nodding at last and sighing. "It may be, yes. If the mage will tell us where the wizards have hidden themselves, then I may send you to them as my emissary, to cajole them into meeting with us and using our combined wisdoms.”

  Her palms clapped together as if to show that her mind was made up. She swung to the coffer, sorted through the parchments there. Nodding, she selected one, unrolling it and glancing over it at the barbarian with a faint smile.

  “I lack many of the magical impedimenta of my black tower, Kothar. But one of these spells will do nicely, along with that scepter I removed from the tomb of Kandakore. It has certain—ah—properties, this scepter.”

  She lifted it from where it lay beside the coffer and made cryptic signs in the air with it, saying softly, "I shall call on Afgorkon to help me send you to find one of those wizards who are hiding from the world, terrified of the assassin's dagger.”

  Red Lori began to chant in that same thick voice which she had used on deck when she had summoned up the father of winds. At the same time she went on moving the scepter in the air.

  The room grew cold. The barbarian found himself staring at the shimmering outlines of the cabin that shifted and grew hazy, as if the cabin and the woman were fading to invisibility.

  Kothar felt a wrench in all his muscles.

  Chapter Six

  He stood on a vast plain beneath a red sun, amid a scene of awful desolation. Instinctively he knew this was a dying world, perhaps he had been cast through uncountable millennia to those days before the end of Yarth. There were low rounded hills in the background, eroded by wind, rain, and age. The ground underfoot was almost sand, so fine it was, and only here and there were any living plants.

  Yet it was not this wasteland that filled him with awe. Rather, it was the dozen or more glowing signs—suspended in the air, blazing as if with fire, though there were no flames—that made a low, moaning noise as the wind blew through them. There was a feeling of strange energies in the air, magical energies, that made the sweat come out onto his forehead.

  The barbarian shook himself. His hand touched Frostfire, wrapped fingers about it. This was where one of the warlocks of Yarth had hidden himself thousands—perhaps even millions—of years in the future. His spells had carried him through space and time, just as Red Lori had. sent him, Kothar, to find this man.

  He walked forward below the burning signs. They did not halt him nor even slow him down for their magic was not directed against a living human such as he, but only against the assassins from the grave who served the killer-mage's dread will.

  He had not far to go before he saw the seated figure. This man was old, with white hair framing a bald head, his face covered with a long white beard. He looked up as the sand grated under Kothar's war-boots, and his dark eyes were big with terror. His pale, trembling hands came up as if to push the Cumberian away.

  “No,”he wheezed. “No, no...”

  "I'm no killer,” growled Kothar. "I've been sent by Red Lori and Afgorkon to help you.”

  “Afgorkon?” The bald head went up, the old nostrils flared. "Aye, if any can help, he might.”

  Kothar spoke of the eidolon and of the enameled coffer that contained the lost arcana of the mage Afgorkon. The old man's excitement grew until he was almost dancing in his eagerness and renewed hope.

  "It may be, it could be. It's worth a chance, the risk surely. Ah, to mingle my spells with those of fabled Afgorkon. It would be the supreme triumph of my long life.”

  He added, “Wait I will take us back to Red Lori with a spell of my own and—”

  The air seemed to burn around them. The sigils hanging in the air blazed more brightly, glowing scarlet. And the old man screamed in stark terror.

  Kothar swung around. Coming across the plain in great leaps and bounds were three half-rotting corpses. One was so frayed by time and the grave that it seemed little more than a skeleton bound together by brown, withered ligaments. And it carried a rusted battleaxe in a hand.

  "The liches that serve the assassin,” sobbed old Phordog Fale. “Nothing can stop them. Run now, barbarian-while you can still save your life. They don't want to kill you, unless you make them. They care only about me!"

  Kothar rasped, "By Dwalka! Red Lori sent me to fetch you to her—and I mean to do so.”

  He leaped, his sword-blade sparkling in the red fury of the blazing sigils above his head. They were being consumed too fast, he understood that; in some manner the killer must have found a way to counteract their protective magic by causing them to burn themselves up. He ran to meet the oncoming corpses with a snarl on his lips.

  The steel blade swung. A rotted head leaped from its shoulders. Kothar whirled, slashed at a second, driving his steel between bones and putrid flesh. The liches never halted in their running; dead men all, they could not be killed a second time.

  The barbarian swore, his flesh creeping. The old man was behind him, patiently waiting for the death he felt he could not avoid.

  They were past Kothar now, with eyes only for Phordog Fale. The Cumberian grinned coldly and ran after them. He ran lightly, swiftly, soon overtaking them.

  N
ow he drove Frostfire in a savage arc so that its edge would bite through thighbones and dead flesh. One lich fell to the ground, and then a second. They tried to run on the stumps of what had been legs but made only slow, snail-like progress.

  He caught the third corpse as it was swinging its rusted ax high to bring its edge down at the old man. Frostfire sliced through the rotting wooden handle of that ax; the ax-head fell to the ground. The lich whirled, dove for Kothar with its bony hands up to claw.

  Kothar cut its arms off. Then he slashed at its legs until it was no more than the torso of a dead man flopping on the ground. He turned to the others that still crawled across the ground. Their arms he hacked off, he cut them into gobbets with his steel.

  Panting, he paused to glance at the stunned Phordog Fale. “Old man, chant that spell of yours that will get us out of here before somebody sends more dead men for me to slice apart.”

  The old man began his incantation. In seconds, they were in the cabin of the Wave-skimmer Red Lori cried out delightedly at sight of the old man. “Phordog Fale! I haven’t seen you since I was a little girl at the court of King Zopar, where you were chief magician. Do you remember me?”

  The old man smiled as he caught her hands. "Dear Lori with the red hair, I mind you well. Always you were under my elbow, practicing my spells, memorizing the various cantraips. When you were alone you pored over my books on magic, learning them word for word. And now you have saved my life.”

  “You must help, Phordog Fale. Alone, it is too much of a task for me.” She went on to speak of the finding of the coffer and the statue, and of what Afgorkon had told her.

  Kothar watched and listened for a few moments, but there was a need in him for clean, fresh sea air. He did not care for the stinks of magic and dead bodies. He went up onto the deck where he stood with the salt wind blowing lazily and the ship swaying and dipping as it ploughed through the waves.

  He turned his head, saw Grovdon Dokk like a statue at the whip-staff, cloak flapping in the winds. He wondered at the thoughts of the sea captain, with his great ship running before a wizard wind. It was probably not the first time in his life that he had come in contact with sorcery.

  He called up to the man. “How soon to Zoane, captain?”

  “A day and this night, barbarian. Tomorrow at sundown we anchor in its harbor.” Grovdon Dokk spat into the wind. "I like it not, this traveling by a wind that shows itself only on the ship. Look you at the sea.”

  Gone were the ripples that had appeared at this first onrush of breeze. Now the sea was calm as if Wave-skimmer lay in the tropic doldrums. Kothar shrugged. After what his eyes had seen, this glimpse of working magic was as nothing. He went down the companionway with a wave of the hand at the bemused sailor.

  Red Lori waited in the cabin, where old Phordog Fale rested his aged body on a bunk. The witch-woman snapped at him, “Where were you? I have need for you.”

  Kothar thought of his advice to Flarion. Perhaps he ought to throw this one down on a bunk too, and take her; it might teach her manners. Perhaps she read his intent in his face, for she lifted her chin like an empress, saying, "You would not dare! I would blast you with a dozen curses, leave you naught but a babbling idiot.”

  “Is this why you summoned me?”

  “I have a task for you. Phordog Fale has told me that Nemidomes of Abathor has also taken refuge against the magicks of the killer-mage. You will go to him, bring him back with you.”

  "Girl, my belly aches with emptiness. I'll—“ She was crying out the words and the wrenching was in his muscles, agonizing. Under his war-boots the cabin floor tilted oddly as she moved the scepter this way and that in the air.

  He stood on the cobbled floor of a tunnel. All around him were bluish-purple walls, seemingly carved out of rock and dirt, rounded and abandoned. To his left were clay cylinders tumbled and shattered. Ahead of him he could make out a reddish light, oddly flickering. The barbarian sighed and began his walk. Somewhere up ahead he would discover Nemidomes of Abathor, he was certain.

  His war-boots were dusty by the time he came to the end of the long tunnel way, and now he could hear the sound of voices murmuring softly and smell the odors of natron and balsalm. He came to a stop, eyes striving to pierce the purplish gloom of this rock-walled chamber. He knew what it was, a charnel house where the dead of Abathor were stuffed with quick lime and bitumen for the better preservation of their corpses. Of all the lands of Yarth, only Abathor spent so much care and money on the preservation of their dead.

  His eyes roamed, seeking the shape of him who might be Nemidomes. Most of the men at whom he stared were scrawny, aged beings whose skin was purple because of the spices and unguents which they handled day after day. Among them would be one whose skin was pink. He began walking forward.

  It was one of the corpses that betrayed Nemidomes. For the Cumberian saw a dead woman sit up—she had been stabbed in a quarrel, he gathered, because there was a dagger still sticking between her ribs—and yank out that dagger and hurl herself without a sound toward the back of a plump man with shaggy gray hair.

  Kothar cursed and leaped. His arms went around the legs of what had been an attractive woman short hours before, but was now cold, dead flesh. His stomach turned over as he felt that dead flesh against his own. But his hand stabbed out, grasped the lifeless wrist, and hammered it against a cobblestone.

  The body writhed and twisted in his arms as it fought him savagely. It did not breathe, being dead, yet it was seemingly alive, making it the more ghastly. Teeth bit into his arm, nails scratched. Kothar grunted, reached up, a hand to tangle fingers in long hair and battered that lifeless skull upon the stones: Again and again he hammered the head to the stone until bone cracked. Still the thing fought on.

  He ripped out Frostfire, struggled to free himself, made it to his feet. The sword flashed, and as the steel sheared through the dead flesh and bone, the thing flopped across the cobbles. Nemidomes was panting in terror, watching. The charnel workers were gathered in a circle surrounding the dead thing, crying out in horror. When he was done with Frostfire, the corpse was in many parts, all of them wriggling and twisting. Kothar stared down at what was left of that which had been a woman and wanted to be sick. He fought the sickness, waiting until the necromantic life which had sustained if faded away and nothing remained but truly lifeless flesh.

  Then he reached out and caught Nemidomes by a wrist. As the sorcerer shrank from him, the barbarian drew him nearer to his whisper. "I come from Red Lori and from old Phordog Fale! I'm here to save you from the assassins!"

  The plump little man was covered with sweat all over his pink face. He shook in his fear and resisted only slightly when the Cumberian dragged him down one of the tunnel ways.

  "I t—thought I was so s—safe,” he babbled, running a hand across his face, trotting where the big barbarian led, “hiding in the ch—charnel house. I d—didn't realize whoever is trying to ki—kill us magicians is using the d—dead to do it!”

  “Well, he is,” rasped Kothar, turning to look down at the little man. “Have you any idea who it is?”

  Pale blue eyes stared back at him hopelessly as the plump man shook his head, making his jowls jiggle. "No. I thought you mi—might, since you got here in time to save my life.”

  "You'd better make a spell to get us out of here.” He told the magician where the Wave-skimmer was located.

  The smaller man made some passes with his hands, chanted a few words. In a moment the tunnels were gone and the familiar deck of the brigantine was underfoot. The magician sighed and his shoulders sagged.

  Then his worry came back and he stared around him with fretful eyes. “We aren't safe even here, you know. The assassin can see us. That's how he knew I was in the charnel house."

  And that Phordog Fale was hiding at the end of the world, the barbarian thought to himself. He caught the plump man by an elbow, brought him down the companionway to the cabin where Red Lori and Phordog Fale were waiting.

&n
bsp; Red Lori said to Kothar, “Phordog Fale and I have been busy since you left to find Nemidomes. We have spoken to Kazazael of Commoral, to Ulnar Themaquol, to Kylwyrren of Urgal. We have decided to band together, to apply all the magicks each of us knows to throw a barrier around ourselves?”

  Kothar shrugged. The green eyes sharpened. “You will bring Flarion and the dancing girl. We leave at dusk. Horses will be ready at the quay, where Grovdon Dokk has gone to arrange these matters.”

  The barbarian found, Flarion on deck, with Cybala across the ship from him, staring at the waters of Zoane harbor. His thumb jerked back at the quarterdeck cabin.

  “They’ll need protection;” rasped the barbarian, "They're great magicians, all of them, but they're about as helpless as babies when it comes to standing of a dagger or sword attack. This will be our job.”

  Flarion snarled, "I want no more to do with it. What've we gotten out of this, Kothar? Not so much as a copper soldan! And what've we got to look forward to? Just hard fighting. I say leave the redheaded woman and her wizards to shift for themselves.”

  “The Cumberian grunted. "You have the girl.”

  "Pah!” Flarion spat over-side. "That one cold as a northern sea, by Salara! She almost ran a dagger into me when I sought to kiss her last night.”

  “And what did you do? Take the dirk away from her and beg her pardon? Boy, you're an idiot where a skirt's concerned.”

  The youth looked uncomfortable. "Just the same . . .”

  “We stay. Who knows, maybe you'll make the wench like you yet." He chuckled, eyeing his friend. "You want me to speak to her?”

  Flarion looked suspicious. “What are you going to say?”

  “I’ll send her running into your arms. Just let me handle it my way and don't interfere. Agreed?”

  Flarion nodded slowly, and watched the big barbarian cross the deck toward the larboard rail, where Cybala leaned her weight. He saw Kothar catch the hood of her long cloak and pull it back, freeing the glossy black hair of the dancer so that it rippled down her back.