M A R Barker - [Tekumel- The Empire of the Petal Throne 01]

by Flamesong (v0. 9) (epub)

  “The walls, ceiling, and floor are metal—and metal dissipates the energies of the Planes Beyond unless it be specially shaped to act as a channel, a conduit! Why do you think sorcerers wear no armor, no weapons or jewelry—even carry few coins? The Nexus Point in the Garden opens into this place, and this metal then prevents a mage from departing. Probably this prison also contains damping spells to keep its victims from using sorcery to open the door or blast down a wall—a nice trap for those who journey with the powers of magic!”

  “What about the door—the bars—?”

  “Locked. Without magic or the tricks of the locksmiths’ clans, we remain here until our hosts come to see what prey is caught in their snare.”

  Ridek thrust his head through one of the spaces between the bars. He looked left and right and saw a longish corridor that disappeared into the darkness in both directions. Just opposite, high up in a bracket on the wall, was a lamp: a strange little transparent globe that glowed a steady yellow. The wall itself was covered from top to bottom with a low relief of writhing geometrical designs. He craned his neck and was rewarded with a glimpse of more barred cages on the same side of the passage as theirs. He put his head through the bars closer to the cell on his right and wriggled around until he could squint into it.

  A body lay sprawled there; elongated bones of mottled ivory shrouded in the stained remnants of a robe or mantle, a shattered device of corroded black stuff, the dried and cracked remains of a leather harness, and a skull.

  That skull was not human: it was melon-shaped, a flattened sphere, ugly and sinister. The eye-sockets were long vertical ovals, and he could see no holes for nostrils. Where the lower jaw and the teeth should have been, there was only a single rippled, jointed, bony column: a neck and throat but no mouth!

  Shakily he reported to Aluja. The Mihalli said nothing but closed his scarlet eyes and squatted down.

  This did not reassure Ridek in the least. “Who is—what was—that creature?” The answer was important.

  “A Shunned One, I think,” Aluja replied grudgingly. “A race that dwells in the northeast of your land of Yan Kor. They live in sealed cities and cannot breathe our air for long.”

  “It was left here to perish?”

  “So it would seem. That, in some wise, is encouraging. The Shunned Ones hate humankind. Whoever dislikes them may be friendly to us.” Aluja lowered his long head to gaze

  down at his orb once more.

  1

  They waited, but no one came. Nothing.

  Ridek examined the little cell more carefully: it was exactly three of his paces wide and four deep; the rivets were as immovable as the crags of Njekka Shoals; there were no furnishings, no toilet facilities, not even a bucket for water. He was reminded that he was both hungry and thirsty.

  “What do we do?” he demanded in exasperation. “Sit here and die?”

  The scarlet eyes blinked at him. “What else? —Yet I think that Our coming must trigger an alarm somewhere.” The boy looked as though he were about to cry again, and Aluja hastened to add, “Someone will come. This place is in decent repair; it’s not a dusty ruin, not a lost dungeon beneath some deserted city. Mayhap I can bargain: trade some service for our freedom.”

  He did not sound overly hopeful.

  12

  Ridek squatted down upon the hard metal floor. He intended only to rest, but the sleep-demons seized him instead. He awoke to a raging thirst and a hunger that would have made fish-heads and Dna-grain gruel—the fare his tutors gave him when he was lazy about his lessons—a veritable feast of the gods!

  He tried the door again, reached an arm around to fiddle with the lock, and did his best to squeeze through the bars. All to no avail. The space between the lowest horizontal bar and the floor looked more promising: it was a few finger’s-breadths higher than those above it. He glanced over at Aluja, but the Mihalli was asleep.

  He lay flat, huddled himself small, and thrust first his arms, then his head, and finally his shoulders through one of the holes. It was a tight fit. The rough surface of the bars scraped away skin, but he wriggled, panted, and pushed. His upper body was out! The rest was easy. After all, had not he and Sihan explored the warren of secret crawl-ways behind the fireplace in the Great Hall in Ke’er? Sihan had ended stuck as tight as a stopper in a bottle and eventually had to be rescued, screaming and half-dead with terror, by their father’s masons. But Ridek had made it!

  He crawled the rest of the way out into the passage and scrambled up. The black staff lay within reach inside the cell, and he pulled it through after him.

  “Aluja!” he called softly. “Aluja!”

  The Mihalli was on his feet in one single, fluid motion. They both knew that he was too large to follow.

  The boy was overwrought, as well he ought to be, and Aluja had to wait until he grew calm enough to listen. “Look, Ridek,” he said, “you are the master of our Skeins now. You must leave me and get help: find the owners of this place, those who have prepared this trap, and obtain their cooperation! Say that we wish them no harm, that we are not like the Shunned Ones, the Ssu, or others who would do them ill. Tell them that we would only return to Yan Kor, and that 1 would willingly perform some service in return for our freedom. These things you must do.”

  The boy was precocious for his age; indeed, he was clever even for a Mihalli child, although Aluja would never have claimed as much to any other member of his own species. He reached into his belt-pouch and withdrew a small, round, dark object. This he put into Ridek’s palm.

  “Here is an ‘Eye,’ a tool made long ago by human sorcerers. My ‘Ball of Immediate Eventuation’ is too complex for you, but this you can use as soon as you are away from these metal walls. This is the ‘Excellent Ruby Eye’; point it, press this stud on the back, and your target is put out of phase with the temporal currents of this Plane—”

  “I don’t—”

  “Never mind, then. It emits a flare of red light and ‘freezes’ its target in time. One so struck becomes a statue, immovable, untouchable, as solid as Thenu Thendraya Peak! You can leave him thus for as long as you wish: a moment, a day, a thousand years. You understand? The victim is not dead; another push of the stud releases him from stasis. If he were attacking you with a sword, he would emerge to finish the blow and do exactly what he had planned to do before the ‘Eye’ took him.” He watched the boy’s face. Clever or not, Ridek could hardly be expected to understand all this. Yet there was no other course.

  “Don’t worry, Aluja. I—I shall find the key—return with food—get you out—” Ridek looked as though he might cry again, and Aluja reached through the bars and took him into his arms. This time the boy offered no protest.

  f

  Arbitrarily Ridek turned to his right. The corridor was long, the other cells empty and dust-filled. Here and there more of the yellow lamps made eye-hurting mazes of the carven geometric patterns on the walls and the ceiling. Some of these curious little lanterns were dark; others were broken off entirely. No matter what Aluja thought, whoever owned this place did not visit here often.

  Aside from his own cautious, scuffling steps, there was no sound. The passage was as eerily silent as one of the Empty Planes. He came to an open door, passed through, and peered down into a shadow-hung circular stairwell. The gods knew what awaited down there! A strange, bittersweet odor wafted up, and he backed away. His premonitions were sometimes almost as accurate as Ulgais’s.

  He retraced his path, came to Aluja again, and told, him what he had found. The Mihalli could make no suggestion as to what might have been at the bottom of that stair, but he was emphatic on one point: Ridek must find a way up, not down.

  Two more of the cells were occupied in addition to that in which the Shunned One lay. Both occupants were human and both were dead, one a very long time ago, the other recently enough to give off a noxious stench. Ridek did not pause to see. He was close to the outer limit of his endurance now; any more and he would tilt over into p
anic.

  The passage ended in another door, as massive as a sepulchre-stone. It was open, however, and beyond he glimpsed a second stairway. Blessedly this led up. One, two, three turns around the newel-post, and he came to a landing where a second door barred his way, its panels of crude, black wood. It opened at a push, and he saw that its outer side was elegantly carved in more geometric patterns, a fanciful design of whorls, zigzags and triangles.

  He found himself in a room, large and ornate, the walls and floor done in a mosaic of red and black tiles. High in one wall a stepped embrasure led up to a narrow slit that let sunlight into the chamber: beautiful, clean, bright sunlight, as welcome as rain to summer crops! He could not climb up to see out, but it was enough to know that he no longer wandered in some subterranean dungeon.

  There were more doors, all open, another stairway up that was broader and still more elaborately sculptured, further rooms and Railways. Ridek paused to remind himself of the way back to Aluja.

  He emerged into an airy upper portico of pillars and pierced balustrades of polished, blue-veined marble. The floor of this chamber drew his attention: it was divided all along its length into narrow pathways separated from one another by little carven curbings. Each level was raised a finger’s breadth above the one next to it, and every one was a different color. The outer, lowest walkway was of black basalt, the higher one beside it red, then green, then yellow, then white, and finally blue—a beautiful, rich azure, like the lapis lazuli his mother wore on feast days. From the topmost walkway—dais? —the colors descended again in reverse order until one came back to black.

  Ridek was familiar with the significance of daises. His father and mother occupied higher platforms than did the clan-matriarchs and their consorts, and these in turn were set above the seats of the lesser courtiers of the Baron’s household. The Tsolyani were said to be still more formal. Yet here one had what amounted to a series of parallel walkways, all differently colored. It was unlikely that they were just architectural embellishments: they could have a ritual purpose, or they might serve to separate the various strata of society. In the latter case, he wondered, how did one cross the room: from the black pathway on one side to its mate on the other? Halfway along the empty, silent portico he found the answer: a set of narrow, oblong apertures in the floor. A glance told him that a steep little stair led down on one side, through a short tunnel, and up again to the walkway of the same color on the other. Only the central, blue pavement continued unbroken. Of course!

  He was still examining these odd arrangements when he heard a noise. The steps of the staircase leading up out of the tunnel beneath the red walkway were tall and narrow; he banged his shins and cursed.

  It was enough. He was seen.

  Two people had come in at the far end of the chamber, both upon the lowest path, the black. One was a boy of about his own age, the other a girl. They wore only short kilts of some coarse, soot-hued fabric bordered with white embrasure designs. Ridek stared, and the pair stared back.

  They might have been twins: both were shorter than he by a handspan, slender and wiry-looking, with long, glossy-black, curled tresses caught up with gleaming copper pins. The girl wore a necklace of copper plaques; aside from the clearly visible difference in their sexes, they were as identical as a person’s two eyes.

  Their costumes were unlike those of any nation Ridek knew. The girl’s small, high breasts were bare, but her kilt was not cut in Tsolyani fashion. They might be Livyani, but he had heard that those,odd southerners wore even fewer garments than these two—and tattooed themselves from head to foot as well! They were certainly not Mu’ugalavyani nor from some other northern land; those nations preferred more clothing. They were also not likely to be Salarvyani if the emissaries he had seen at the court of Ke’er were any criterion: those folk were sallow, hairy, and partial' to garish, multi-colored robes. Ridek was also intrigued by the staff— tool? weapon?—the youth carried: a sort of complicated halberd of dark gray metal. Was it steel? Iron was so rare on Tekumel that his father had spent years searching for enough to equip his own personal legion, the Gurek of the Mighty of Yan Kor.

  Surprise was mutual. The girl pointed, whispered, and made little fluttering gestures. The boy hefted his axe-sceptre-thing and gawked at him open-mouthed.

  The girl motioned and said something like, “TO pa denketu’ii." The language sounded like the singing of a bird, all rises and falls, and ending on a final warbled high note. She pointed down at the black pathway upon which she and her companion stood and indicated that Ridek should join them. A warning? He might be standing upon the color reserved for nobles, priests, or the gods themselves, for all he knew!

  Ridek himself was noble, the heir of the ruler of Yan Kor and all the north. Something in this pair’s attutide hinted that they might be slaves or serfs. He decided that he would not come down to their level. Instead, he stepped up onto the central blue walkway.

  If only princes walked upon azure, then Ridek Chna Aid would have nothing less!

  The girl cried out in her strange, chirping language, and the boy echoed her. Both made importunate gestures. Their meaning was clear enough.

  Ridek strode toward them, Aluja’s “Eye” clutched surreptitiously in his left hand, the black staff in his right. The boy lowered the halberd-thing, jabbed a finger toward Ridek’s tunic and boots, and muttered in awed tones to his companion. Then both of them bowed.

  He felt as though he had just won a signal victory!

  A shrill, scolding voice called out from farther away among the squat columns. Others replied, deeper and more resonant. He heard laughter and the clink of metal. Then both the boy and the girl knelt, their attitude again all too intelligible; someone of high station was coming. Ridek began to have doubts about the wisdom of his bravado, but he had cast the dice and now must stand by his wager.

  They had not long to wait. A dozen men and women in sable-hued kilts swept toward him along the black walkway; then armored soldiers in blue, white, and silver livery upon the red; elegantly garbed courtiers and chamberlains upon the green; older and more venerable persons in costumes as colorful and iridescent as Kheshchai-birds upon the yellow; and two plump, pale-skinned, elderly matrons in gowns of thin, pearl-gray gauze bespangled with brilliants upon the white.

  No one occupied the blue walkway upon which Ridek stood.

  The party halted in confusion. One of the old ladies said something to a suave, middle-aged gentleman on the yellow path just below her; he passed the message on to a functionary upon the green, who gave it to a gilded officer on the red, and thence to a purposeful-looking, stout woman upon the black. She addressed the boy and girl, received a murmured, humble reply, and transmitted it back up through the hierarchy to the two occupants of the white tier. By the Sword of Karakan, Ridek thought, a conversation must be an all day affair here!

  The group stared at Ridek, some smiling and giggling, others obviously impatient. The black-kilted woman stepped forward with great self-importance and snapped something in their sing-song language. She waited.

  “I am Ridek Chna Aid, Prince of Yan Kor,” he replied. Whatever came of this, he would not disgrace his parents’ lineages! The situation did not really appear threatening, and he began to take heart. Then he saw what hung at the servant-woman’s broad, black, leather belt: a little whip of knotted silken cords. The backs of the boy and girl kneeling before him bore faint traceries of scars. This did not bode well.

  The woman tried again. One of the courtiers spoke in what sounded like a different language, and after him another. Ridek repeated his name and titles. He strove to appear proud and commanding, but he could feel his masquerade fraying around the edges. These were adults, foreigners, and—for all he knew—tyrants, fiends, or cannibals! His legs were as weak as reeds, and perspiration trickled down his forehead into his eyes. He dared not wipe it away.

  The taller of the two women on the white pathway made an imperious gesture, and a black-clad youth raced off on
silent, bare feet. Hunger, thirst, and—to be honest—stomach-queasy fear vied for Ridek’s attention.

  There was a jangling, chiming noise. Over the high-piled coiffures, plumed headdresses, and fantastic helmets of the party Ridek saw the servant returning with a powerfully built man who wore a kilt of vertical stripes of many colors. A lacy net of little chains hung like a cloak over his torso and jingled around his bare knees. Strangest of all, his face was concealed beneath a golden mask shaped like a Sro-dragon’s head.

  The mask had no eyeholes. The servant led this individual along by the hand.

  The others upon the lowest, black walkway made ro6m; the masked man—slave? servant? captive?—approached to within five paces of Ridek and raised thick-fingered hands that looked as though they belonged to a soldier or a gladiator. He spoke in a different tongue, one that Ridek recognized.

  It was Engsvanyali, the language of the Priestkings of Engsvan hla Ganga, as dead and dusty as the Scrolls of the Priest Pavar himself!

  Ridek had never been good at the classics. He was still struggling to formulate a greeting when the man addressed him again, this time in Tsolyani. He had mastered enough

  Tsolyani to reply—but not much more, to the despair of his tutors and Lord Fu Shi’i. The man made dramatic gestures and said something else in a guttural, mushy-sounding tongue, possibly Salarvyani. Of this Ridek knew nothing at all.

  The man’s next words were in Yan Koryani! His accent was foreign, barbarous, and sounded as though he had learned the language in the lowest stews of one of the eastern cities: Tleku Miriya, Krel, or even Ngakii on Lake Parunal. No matter, it was as musical as the hymns of the gods to Ridek’s ears!

  What he said was utterly incongruous, however: “Piss on you, whoever you are, answer me before the Gaichun's lady here has us both castrated! You must speak a tongue somebody can understand!”

  Ridek stood speechless. He almost dropped the “Eye.” “Hear me, you son of a Chlen-turd.” the translator declaimed in loud, formal tones suited to a herald announcing the divinity of an emperor, “I’m supposed to be telling you the ever-living, ever-copulating titles of the two old Hu-bats behind me there on the white. From what these arse-kissing slaves say, you’re in trouble. Your tunic and boots and hair-do all sound like the Five Empires—mayhap Yan Kor— and if you can understand me, then say so—prettily and quick! And get your clumsy feet down off the Gaichun’s shit-smeared blue walkway!”