Black Kath's Daughter

by Richard Parks

  "It's not that I have a choice," Laras muttered; Marta barely heard him.

  Yet hear she did, and knew he was wrong. He had a choice, and so far he'd made all the wrong ones. There was still time to make the right one. For, when he finished stumbling around in there, he would inevitably find the other entrance that she knew lay on the far side of the cavern. If he was wise, he would use it to be long gone before Black Kath heard of this day's work. Marta's choice was that she would not go around to the other side and seal that entrance as well, trapping Laras there in truth rather than assumption.

  Why am I letting him go?

  Marta didn't have to think about it too long. It was because she owed Laras a debt, and she had to repay it just as those who sought her mother's help had to repay her. Whether he had meant to or not, Laras had done her a service. With his unwitting help, Marta had found what she was looking for.

  "Strength gives way to weakness," she whispered to the stone, too softly for Laras or anyone else to hear. "It's a paradox, but it's true." She played with the words, liking one sound better than another, feeling them out, going for the concept's best expression.

  "What Power Holds, Weakness Frees."

  Marta smiled. It was the First Law of Power. She had it now; her journey begun. Her mother had said true about the Arrow Path, for when Marta found the law, grasped it, understood it, there was no question in her mind. Marta knew she was right; she knew what she had won today and that knowledge made her almost giddy.

  Now it really begins.

  Despite her happiness, that thought was like a drenching of cold well water. Now that she had the First Law there were more questions. Such as what all the implications of the Law were. How best to apply it. What it's limits were. There was so much she wanted to ask her mother when she returned, so much she had yet to learn. She hardly knew where to begin. Her mother would know; Marta was sure of it, and she could barely wait. She backtracked to where Laras's horse was patiently waiting for him and took the reins.

  "Your master's not coming. Let's go home," she said. The horse, for want of another option, followed without protest.

  CHAPTER 4

  "In magic, there is no such thing as a 'little' power. It all leads to either mastery or destruction. Or both."

  — From the Chronicles of Dommar the Beast

  Laras cleared as many of the stones as he could, but soon came to larger ones he could not move. More, even if he did manage to shift them, it appeared that all this would accomplish would be to bring down the crumbling ceiling on his head. Now and then he heard the ominous crack of stones fracturing in place, yielding to the heavy stress placed upon them. After the third such he was so skittish that he managed to bang his head against a low hanging boulder. He scuttled back until a solid stone wall stopped him.

  "Well, Laras my lad, you've made a royal mash of it one more time."

  It was dwelling on the obvious, but it occurred to Laras that perhaps he should have killed Marta while he had the chance. Yet, even now, there was something about that course of action that bothered him just a bit. Perhaps it was the fact that he'd never killed anyone in his life. Oh, he was pretty sure he could do it if the need arose, but that need hadn't been so clear before. Or perhaps it was more due to the simple truth that the point had been to discover this "First Law of Power" that Marta had spoken about. Marta's life or death had always been secondary to that.

  If Laras could have accomplished what he'd set out to do without harming anyone, then that would have been fine with him. He had nothing against Marta; she was a pretty young thing and he'd have regretted killing her. It's just that he hadn't thought he could get what he wanted otherwise. Now, his back to a wall of stone there in the darkness, he was thinking that he'd been right. He was certain it was too late, either way. There he was, and all his brooding about what he should or could have done didn't change that one bit.

  "I'll bet she was lying," he said aloud. "There's no power here."

  The words seemed to hang on the air, along with his breath. Laras thought about that. He could see his own breath; where was the light to see anything coming from? Not the entrance just ahead; that was blocked solid. Laras got up slowly, turned to put his back to the entrance and looked right and left.

  The dim light was coming from the left. Laras followed it and soon came to a place where the right wall of the tunnel was broken away and he looked out over a cavern. The light didn't get much brighter and after a moment Laras understood why; the source wasn't very large, or was very far away. It was a little hard to tell which, but Laras did know it was high on the wall on the other side of the cavern. Yet light meant an opening, and that meant a way out. Laras looked down at the edge of a waterfall and studied the rocks there, looking for a way down. He finally shook his head.

  More bad luck. The rocks are wet and the light dim at best. I'd kill myself trying that way.

  He wondered, idly, if this was some torture that Black Kath's bastard daughter had prepared for him: full sight of an escape that he couldn't possibly reach. Well, he'd fool her yet. He would reach it. Somehow. The tunnel leading from the entrance went both right and left. He'd have to try the other way. There was no light there; it might not even open into the cavern proper. Laras studied the rocks again, and the clusters of stalagmites further down waiting to greet any falling body with sharp spikes. Laras remembered that Marta had told the truth about the branching tunnel, and told him to go to the right which, coming in, would be the opposite of the way he'd just come.

  She must have been lying, yet this way clearly leads nowhere.

  He decided he'd take the other branch of the tunnel, and darkness be damned. He didn't know what was waiting for him, if anything, or what other surprises Marta might have prepared. Yet, even assuming she had the power to lay traps, why would she? Wasn't being entombed alive bad enough? Perhaps and perhaps not. Whatever the facts turned out to be, Laras did know one thing for certain—there was a way out of this trap, and he was going to find it.

  I'm going to live, Black Kath's Daughter. Count on it.

  Laras worked his way down the tunnel going the other way. He passed the entrance, now just a dark patch in the wall to his right. A few steps beyond that, the darkness was almost absolute. What little had filtered through from the other opening of the tunnel was almost gone now. Now and then Laras saw patches of lesser shadow that might have been light, might have been his imagination. The floor was slanting down sharply and he had to maintain contact with the left side of the tunnel to keep himself oriented properly. He wasn't sure how long he'd been walking when his fingers suddenly brushed against nothing, and a freshening breeze touched his face. Laras groped for the opening, found it, and found the light again.

  He stood on the floor of the cavern, looking across to the light on the other side. There was a river between them, too wide to jump. He didn't see anything but a forest of stalagmites further down the river; certainly nothing as sensible and useful as a bridge. Laras kneeled down and put his right hand into the water, feeling for the bottom. The water was cold, but no worse than the cave itself. Yet, feel as he might, the bottom of the river was out of reach. Laras considered. It might only be a few feet deep, but then again he might have to swim. Assuming he could reach the exit he could now clearly see across the cavern, there was no way he could get very far on foot in wet clothes. It wasn't yet winter, but he was chilled to the bone in the cave as it was, and the nights outside were chill enough to give him his death if he didn't take precautions. He started to strip down.

  There was a splash out of tune with the waterfall, and the occasional drip from a stalactite above. Laras hesitated, peering at the surface of the river. Did something move in there? He shook his head.

  Couldn't be.

  Oh, he had heard the stories as a child, of demons and hobs that dwelled in caves and came out at night to snatch children for supper, but he knew they were just stories told to persuade the little ones to go to bed quietly. Yet not
hing could really live in the darkness of this place, with nothing to eat. He pulled off his boots and jerkin.

  UNLESS IT ONLY ATE OUT OF HABIT. AND CAN HUNT BEYOND THE CAVE IF NEEDS MUST.

  Laras hesitated, then slowly stepped out of his breeks. He wouldn't go mad, not so close to escape. He hadn't heard that, whatever it was. He wouldn't listen to strange voices. He would leave this place and he would survive. Laras wrapped his boots and the rest of his clothes up in his cloak and tied the bundle securely before carefully tossing it across the stream. He waded into the water, shivering. The drop-off was sharp and he almost stumbled, but he found his footing quickly despite that; there was a layer of sand on the bottom that kept it from being too slippery. The water rose quickly to his waist but no higher.

  Could have been much worse—

  Something grabbed Laras's ankles and pulled hard. His feet were snatched out from under him and he went down, flailing; the cold water closed over his head. He tried to shout before he remembered and got a mouthful of water. He opened his eyes in the murky dark; he saw nothing at first save what appeared to be two flashes of pale white, like small fish. Then further away a pair of eyes opened. They glowed red with malevolent intent and in the light they shed Laras realized the two white fish were a pair of cold pale hands, attached to arms long and thin as bone, pulling him toward a face framed with drifting green black hair, toward a gaping mouth set with sharp white teeth. He tried to kick but his feet were held fast, he tried to reach down but couldn't get a grip on his captor. His vision began to dim again.

  I'm drowning!

  The thought came as if from a distance, shrinking further from him even as the balefire of those eyes came closer still. He was going to die after all and, despite the rage, despite the fear. Once again his bad luck struck him down, despite his best efforts. Deep down Laras had known he was doomed, because everything he did came to nothing at the last. This was just the final failure.

  LET HIM GO, CRAJA.

  The voice again. The one he hadn't heard before. He wasn't hearing it again, not really, but the thought it had expressed seemed friendly enough despite that. The answering hiss was anything but.

  "I won't! He's mine--I caught him!"

  HE BELONGS TO ME. IF YOU'RE HUNGRY, GO HUNT THE WOOD.

  "Not fair...not fair! No flesh so clean, no meat so tender! Mine!"

  There was no answer from the other voice, just a brilliant flash of light, and a howl like a hundred wolves. It pierced the distance to wherever Laras was drifting and brought him back, for a moment.

  That was strange, he thought, and that was all he thought for a while.

  When Laras came to himself again, he was lying on cold stone, shivering. He blinked several times, and coughed, spitting up water. After a moment or two he could breathe properly again. He did that, and nothing else, for several long moments. There was a dim shape lying beside him, and he finally realized it was his clothes bundle. He glanced behind him to the underground river where he had very nearly died, then grabbed the bundle and drug it and himself as far he could from the water until a massive crystalline formation near the far wall stopped him. He eyed the river nervously as he unwrapped his clothes with numb fingers. He saw nothing. After using the cloak to dry himself a bit, got dressed again, never taking his eyes off the river, expecting at any moment to see a bone white face with red eyes peer and grin at him from the riverbank.

  "What was that thing?" he muttered.

  A CRAJA. SURELY YOU'VE HEARD OF THEM?

  Laras had to hear the voice now. He didn't want to, but he had to. "Nursery tales...I didn't know they were real."

  THEY'RE NOT...ENTIRELY. JUST A STUBBORN MEMORY, A SORT OF GHOST THAT GROWS OLD ENOUGH TO FORGET THAT IT NO LONGER LIVES. IT THINKS IT HUNGERS, AND SO IT EATS. YOU, IN THIS CASE. ALMOST.

  "You saved my life...where are you? Who are you?"

  COME TO THE TO THE TOP OF THIS SPIRE AND I WILL ANSWER BOTH QUESTIONS. IT IS, AFTER ALL, THE WAY OUT. YOU DO WANT TO GET OUT, YES?

  Laras started climbing immediately. The light got stronger the higher he climbed, and the way was fairly easy; it was plain to see that the biggest part of the rock formation was one huge stalagmite, more ancient than any other in that very old place.

  Part of the glow that marked the way was coming from the entrance, a sort of friendly yellow light. But there was another light, blue white, almost like the light of the sun filtered through ice. Laras reached the top of the stalagmite and found the source of the blue white glow: a woman with long black hair and white skin, glowing as if with an inner fire.

  I AM AMAET, CALLED BOTH GODDESS AND POWER AND I AM HERE NOW, BEFORE YOU. WHAT SHALL YOU CALL ME, LARAS?

  Laras fell to his knees and bowed low. He averted his eyes which was just as well, since Amaet's smile was blinding.

  A VERY GOOD ANSWER. SO. WHY ARE YOU HERE, LARAS? WHAT IS IT YOU ARE SEEKING?

  It took Laras a few moments to find his voice again, and he was still unable to look at Amaet directly, but he knew the answer to the question and he spoke it clearly. "Power."

  WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH IT?

  That was a harder question, but he also had an answer. It never occurred to him to lie about it. "I would take revenge on Marta, Black Kath's daughter, for trapping me here. I would seek my independent destiny."

  Amaet smiled again. Laras didn't see it, but he knew it was so when he saw the light intensify; he wondered why he hadn't already been burned to nothing by the glory of it.

  TWO SEPARATE MATTERS BUT PERHAPS LINKED, AS MOST THINGS ARE. YOUR DESTINY IS UP TO YOU. REVENGE IS EASIER TO ARRANGE. HOLD OUT YOUR HAND.

  Laras did as Amaet commanded and a glint of gold appeared there in the gloom of the cave, floating in the air about Laras's hand. Something small and heavy fell into his palm and his fingers closed on it, reflexively, to keep from losing his grip. When he opened his fingers again he saw a small circular pendant of gold with an engraved arrow bisecting it. The pendant was attached to a thong of black leather.

  "Goddess, what is this?"

  A TOKEN OF ME. WEAR IT ALWAYS.

  Laras quickly looped the pendant around his neck and Amaet leaned close and whispered the name of the First Law of Power. She held out a stone. TAKE THIS.

  Laras did as she directed. The stone lay flat on his right hand, barely covering the palm.

  WHAT DO YOU HOLD?

  Laras frowned. "It's a stone, Great One."

  YET IT COULD BE SOMETHING ELSE, IF YOU WISH IT. IF I COMMAND YOU. I WANT YOU TO TURN THE STONE INTO PEBBLES.

  "How?"

  BY APPLYING WHAT I HAVE TOLD YOU, LARAS. INVOKE THE FIRST LAW OF POWER.

  "What Power Holds, Weakness Frees,'" he said, feeling a little foolish. Surely there was more to it than that...

  There wasn't. The stone crumbled in his hand, and rained down to the to the top of the stalagmite as a shower of pebbles. Laras' face lit up like a beacon.

  DO ANOTHER, Amaet commanded.

  Laras shattered another rock. A big one, this time. This time he said the words with full intent, concentrating hard, and the rock flew apart with a rumble like thunder and pebbles rained down far into the cavern. There were lines of blood on his face and hands where rock shards had cut him, but Laras giggled like a happy child.

  IS IT EVERYTHING I'VE PROMISED?

  Laras closed his eyes. "Wonderful!"

  MERELY A BEGINNING. YET YOUR WORSHIP IS NOT ENOUGH PAYMENT FOR THIS. WHERE YOU ARE CONCERNED I AM THE SOURCE OF ALL THINGS, TO DISPOSE OR WITHHOLD AT MY WHIM. DO YOU THINK EVERY HEDGE ROW PRIEST OR GILDED SHRINE PRIESTESS COMMANDS THE POWER THAT YOU HOLD NOW?

  Laras just bowed. He didn't understand that, or much else. He also felt that there was no reason he had to understand. His motives, from that point on, would be elegantly simple. "Command me, Goddess."

  WELL SAID. YES, IF YOU WANT THE NEXT MORSEL, THERE IS SOMETHING I WANT YOU TO DO FOR ME.

  "Anything," Laras said, without thought of hesitation. Kill, rob, cheat, steal
, he didn't care. If the First Law gave so much power, what would the Second do? And the Third? He had to find out, and as soon as possible. He only hoped that the Goddess's errand didn't take so very long.

  GO TO MORUSHE. USE THE SEAL YOU BEAR AS ALIAN'S MESSENGER TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE LIBRARY AT THE SHRINE OF AMATOK. I WANT YOU TO ACQUIRE A BOOK FOR ME.

  Laras's smile died. Morushe was a long way from Lythos, at least two weeks from the border, and it would be two days to reach that. Longer, if he didn't buy or steal a new mount. After his first taste of real power, it seemed forever.

  "I will go, of course," he said. "What book shall I take?"

  I WILL MAKE IT KNOWN TO YOU AT THE PROPER TIME. WHEN YOU HAVE ACQUIRED IT, BRING THE BOOK TO THE KING'S LIBRARY AT KARSAN.

  Laras felt a chill. "But...I can't go back there! When Black Kath finds out what I almost did to her daughter..."

  YOU FEAR BLACK KATH? EVEN WITH YOUR NEW POWER?

  Laras couldn't bring himself to look at Amaet directly, but he did force himself to speak. "As yet I know only one Law. Black Kath knows all Seven, or so the stories go, and she has had their use for many years. I can't challenge her...yet."

  SO YOU'RE NOT A TOTAL FOOL. GOOD, THAT WILL HELP...BUT ONLY UP TO A POINT. DO YOU FEAR THE WITCH MORE THAN YOU FEAR ME?

  "No, Goddess."

  THEN DO AS I SAY. YOU'RE A CLEVER LAD. FIND A WAY. AND DO IT BEFORE THE FIRST NEW SNOWFALL BLOCKS THE PASS TO MORUSHE, OR I SHALL BE VERY CROSS WITH YOU.

  "May...may I ask why you want this book moved?"

  BECAUSE SOMEONE WILL NEED IT, AND VERY SOON. ONE MORE THING, LARAS--DO NOT MAKE A HABIT OF QUESTIONING ME.

  Laras bowed even lower. "As you wish it, in all things."

  Amaet smiled again. It was as if the sun had come in full to that deep dark place.

  YOU WILL DO WELL.

  Laras smiled. He was determined, in fact, to do very well indeed. And why not? It had turned out to be so very easy. He left the cave without further delay but he couldn't resist, just for fun, breaking one more big rock on the way out. He liked the sound. It felt like thunder itself was in his hands.