“Will you stop it!” she hissed in a tight voice. Slumping into the cabin’s one other chair, she propped her elbows onto the rough table and jammed her fists against her forehead. Russet tresses tumbled over her face like a veil, so that Mavrsal could not read the emotions etched there. In the hollow of the cloak’s parted folds, her breasts trembled with the quick pounding of her heart.
Sighing, he drained the last of the wine into his mug and pushed the pewter vessel toward the girl. There was another bottle in his cupboard; rising, he drew it out along with another cup. She was carefully sipping from the proffered mug when he resumed his place.
“Look, what’s your name?” he asked her.
She paused so tensely before replying: “Dessylyn.”
The name meant nothing to Mavrsal, although as the tension waxed and receded from her bearing, he understood that she had been concerned her name would bring recognition.
Mavrsal smoothed his close-trimmed brown beard. There was a rough-and-ready toughness about his face that belied the fact he had not quite reached thirty years, and women liked to tell him his rugged features were handsome. His left ear—badly scarred in a tavern brawl—gave him some concern, but it lay hidden beneath the unruly mass of his hair. “Well, Dessylyn.” He grinned. “My name’s Mavrsal, and this is my ship. Aid if you’re worried about finding a place, you can spend the night here.”
There was dread in her face. “I can’t.”
Mavrsal frowned, thinking he had been snubbed, and started to make an angry retort.
“I dare not . . . stay here too long,” Dessylyn interposed, fear glowing in her eyes.
Mavrsal made an exasperated grimace. “Girl, you sneaked aboard my ship like a thief, but I’m inclined to forget your trespassing. Now, my cabin’s cozy, girls tell me I’m a pleasant companion, and I’m generous with my coin. So why wander off into the night, where in the first filthy alley some pox-ridden drunk is going to take for free what I’m willing to pay for!”
“You don’t understand!”
“Very plainly I don’t.” He watched her fidget with the pewter mug for a moment, then added pointedly: “Besides, you can hide here.”
“By the gods! I wish I could!” she cried out. “If only I could hide from him!”
Brows knit in puzzlement, Mavrsal listened to the strangled sobs that rose muffled through the tossled auburn mane. He had not expected so unsettling a response to his probe. Thinking that every effort to penetrate the mystery surrounding Dessylyn only left him further in the dark, he measured out another portion of wine—and wondered if he should apologize for something.
“I suppose that’s why I did it,” she was mumbling. “I was able to slip away for a short while. So I walked along the shore, and I saw all the ships poised for flight along the harbor, and I thought how wonderful to be free like that! To step on board some strange ship, and to sail into the night to some unknown land—where he could never find me! To be free! Oh, I knew I could never escape him like that, but still when I walked by your ship, I wanted to try! I thought I could go through the motions—pretend I was escaping him!
“Only I know there’s no escape from Kane!”
“Kane!” Mavrsal breathed a curse. Anger toward the girl’s tormentor that had started to flare within him abruptly shuddered under the chill blast of fear.
Kane! Even to a stranger in Carsultyal, greatest city of mankind's dawn, that name evoked the specter of terror. A thousand tales were whispered of Kane; even in this city of sorcery, where the lost knowledge of prehuman Earth had been recovered to forge man’s stolen civilization, Kane was a figure of awe and mystery. Despite uncounted tales of strange and disturbing nature, almost nothing was known for certain of the man—save that for generations his tower had brooded over Carsultyal. There he followed the secret paths along which his dark genius led him, and the hand of Kane was rarely seen (though it was often felt) in the affairs of Carsultyal. Brother sorcerers and masters of powers temporal alike spoke his name with dread, and those who dared to make him an enemy seldom were given long to repent their audacity.
“Are you Kane’s woman?” he blurted out.
Her voice was bitter. “So Kane would have it. His mistress. His possession. Once though I was my own woman—before I was fool enough to let Kane draw me into his web!”
“Can’t you leave him—leave this city?”
“You don’t know the power Kane commands! Who would risk his anger to help me!”
Mavrsal squared his shoulders. “I owe no allegiance to Kane—nor to his minions in Carsultyal. This ship may be weathered and leaky, but she’s mine, and I sail her where I please. If you’re set on . . ."
Fear twisted her face. “Don’t!” she gasped. “Don’t even hint this to me! You can’t realize what power Kane . . .
“What was that!”
Mavrsal tensed. From the night sounded the soft buffeting of great leathery wings. Claws scraped against the timbers of the deck outside. Suddenly the lantern flames seemed to shrink and waver; shadow fell deep within the cabin.
“He’s missed me!” Dessylyn moaned. “He’s sent it to bring me back!”
His belly cold, Mavrsal drew his cutlass and turned stiffly toward the door. The lamp flames were no more than a dying blue gleam. Beyond the door a shuffling weight caused a loosened plank to groan dully.
“No! Please!” she cried in desperation. “There’s nothing you can do! Stay back from the door!”
Mavrsal snarled, his face reflecting the rage and terror that gripped him. Dessylyn pulled at his arm to draw him back.
He had locked the cabin door; a heavy iron bolt secured the stout timbers. Now an unseen hand was drawing the bolt aside. Silently, slowly, the iron bar turned, crept back along its mounting brackets. The lock snapped open. With nightmarish suddenness, the door swung wide.
Darkness hung in the passageway. Burning eyes regarded them. Advanced.
Dessylyn screamed hopelessly. Numb with terror, Mavrsal clumsily swung his blade toward the glowing eyes. Blackness reached out, hurled him with irresistible strength across the cabin. Pain burst across his consciousness, and then was only the darkness.
II. “Never, Dessylyn”
She shuddered and drew the fur cloak tighter about her thin shoulders. Would there ever again be a time when she wouldn’t feel this remorseless cold?
Kane, his cruel face haggard in the glow of the brazier, stood hunched over the crimson alembic. How red the coals made his hair and beard; how sinister was the blue flame of his eyes . . . He craned intently forward to trap the last few drops of the phosphorescent elixir in a chalice of ruby crystal.
He had labored sleepless hours over the glowing liquid, she knew. Hours precious to her because these were hours of freedom—a time when she might escape his loathed attention. Her lips pressed a tight, bloodless line. The abominable formulae from which he prepared the elixir! Dessylyn thought again of the mutilated corpse of the young girl Kane had directed his servant to carry off. Again a spasm slid across her lithe form.
“Why won’t you let me go!” she heard herself ask dully for the . . . how many times had she asked that?
“I’ll not let you go, Dessylyn,” Kane replied in a tired voice. “You know that.”
“Someday I’ll leave you.”
“No, Dessylyn. You’ll never leave me.”
“Someday.”
“Never, Dessylyn.”
“Why, Kane?”
With painful care, he allowed a few drops of an amber liqueur to fall into the glowing chalice. Blue flame hovered over its surface.
"Why?”
“Because I love you, Dessylyn.”
A bitter sob, parody of laughter, shook her throat. “You love me.” She enclosed a hopeless scream in those slow, grinding syllables.
“Kane, can I ever make you understand how utterly I loathe you!”
“Perhaps. But I love you, Dessylyn.”
The sobbing laugh returned.
G
lancing at her in concern, Kane carefully extended the chalice toward her. “Drink this. Quickly—before the nimbus dies.”
She looked at him through eyes dark with horror. “Another bitter draught of some foul drug to bind me to you?”
“Whatever you wish to call it.”
“I won’t drink it.”
“Yes, Dessylyn, you will drink it.”
His killer’s eyes held her with bonds of eternal ice. Mechanically she accepted the crimson chalice, let its phosphorescent liqueur pass between her lips, seep down her throat.
Kane sighed and took the empty goblet from her listless grip. His massive frame seemed to shudder from fatigue, and he passed a broad hand across his eyes. Blood rimmed their dark hollows.
“I’ll leave you, Kane.”
The sea wind gusted through the tower window, swirled the long red hair about his haunted face.
“Never, Dessylyn.”
III. At the Inn of the Blue Window
He called himself Dragar . . .
Had the girl not walked past him seconds before, he probably would not have interfered when he heard her scream. Or perhaps he would have. A stranger to Carsultyal, nonetheless the barbarian youth had passed time enough in mankind’s lesser cities to be wary of cries for help in the night—and to think twice before plunging into dark alleys to join in an unseen struggle. But there was a certain pride in the chivalric ideals of his heritage—along with a confidence in the hard muscle of his swordarm, and in the strange blade he carried.
Thinking of the lithe, white limbs he had glimpsed—the patrician beauty of the face that coolly returned his curious stare as she came toward him—Dragar unsheathed the heavy blade at his hip and dashed back along the street he had just entered.
There was moonlight enough to see, although the alley was well removed from the nearest flaring street lamp. Cloak torn away, her gown ripped from her shoulders, the girl writhed in the grasp of two thugs. A third tough, warned by the rush of the barbarian’s boots, angrily spun to face him—sword streaking for the youth’s belly.
Dragar laughed and flung the lighter blade aside with a powerful blow of his sword. Scarcely seeming to pause in his attack, he gashed his assailant’s arm with a upward swing, and as the other’s blade faltered, he split the thug’s skull. One of the two who held the girl lunged forward, but Dragar sidestepped his rush, and with a sudden thrust sent his sword ripping into the man’s chest. The remaining assailant shoved the girl against the barbarian’s legs, whirled and fled down the alley.
Ignoring the fugitive, Dragar helped the stunned girl to her feet. Terror yet twisted her face, as she distractedly arranged the torn bodice of her silken gown. Livid scratches streaked the pale skin of her breasts, and a bruise was swelling out her lip. Dragar caught up her fallen cloak and draped it over her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she breathed in a shaky whisper, speaking at last.
“My pleasure,” he rumbled. “Killing rats is good exercise. Are you all right, though?”
She nodded, then clutched his arm for support.
“The hell you are! There’s a tavern close by, girl. Come—I’ve silver enough for a brandy to put the fire back in your heart.”
She looked as if she might refuse—were her knees steadier. In a daze, the girl let him half carry her into the Inn of the Blue Window. There he led her to an unoccupied booth and called for brandy.
“What’s your name?” he asked, after she had tasted the heady liqueur.
“Dessylyn.”
He framed her name with silent lips to feel its sound. “I’m called Dragar,” he told her. “My home lies among the mountains far south of here, though it’s been a few years since last I hunted with my clansmen. Wanderlust drew me away, and since then I’ve followed this banner or another’s—sometimes just the shadow of my own flapping cloak. Then after hearing tales enough to dull my ears, I decided to see for myself if Carsultyal is the wonder men boast her to be. You a stranger here as well?”
She shook her head. When the color returned to her cheeks, her face seemed less aloof.
“Thought you might be. Else you’d know better than to wander the streets of Carsultyal after nightfall. Must be something important for you to take the risk.”
The lift of her shoulders was casual, though her face remained guarded. “No errand . . . but it was important to me.”
Dragar’s look was questioning.
“I wanted to . . . oh, just to be alone, to get away for a while. Lose myself maybe—I don’t know. I didn’t think anyone would dare touch me if they knew who I was.”
“Your fame must be held somewhat less in awe among these gutter rats than you imagined,” offered Dragar wryly.
“All men fear the name of Kane!” Dessylyn shot back bitterly.
“Kane!” The name exploded from his lips in amazement. What had this girl to do . . .? But Dragar looked again at her sophisticated beauty, her luxurious attire, and understanding dawned. Angrily he became aware that the tavern uproar had become subdued on the echo of his outburst. Several faces had turned to him, their expressions uneasy, calculating.
The barbarian clapped a hand to his swordhilt. “Here’s a man who doesn’t fear a name!” he announced. “I’ve heard something of Carsultyal’s most dreaded sorcerer, but his name means less than a fart to me! There’s steel in this sword that can slice through the best your world famed mastersmiths can forge, and it thrives on the gore of magicians. I call the blade Wizard’s Bane, and there are souls in Hell who will swear that its naming is no boast!”
Dessylyn stared at him in sudden fascination.
And what came after, Dessylyn?
I . . . I’m not sure . . . My mind—I was in a state of shock, I suppose. I remember holding his head for what seemed like forever. And then I remember sponging off the blood with water from the wooden lavabo, and the water was so cold and so red, so red. I must have put on my clothes . . . Yes, and I remember the city and walking and all those faces . . . All those faces . . . they stared at me, some of them. Stared and looked away, stared and looked compassionate, stared and looked curious, stared and made awful suggestions . . . And some just ignored me, didn’t see me at all. I can’t think which faces were the must cruel . . . I walked, walked so long . . . I remember the pain . . . I remember my tears, and the pain when there were no more tears . . . I remember . . . My mind was dazed . . . My memory . . .
I can’t remember . . .
IV. A Ship Will Sail . . .
He looked up from his work and saw her standing there on the quay—watching him, her face a strange play of intensity and indecision. Mavrsal grunted in surprise and straightened from his carpentry. She might have been a phantom, so silently had she crept upon him.
“I had to see if . . . if you were all right,” Dessylyn told him with an uncertain smile.
“I am—aside from a crack on my skull,” Mavrsal answered, eyeing her dubiously.
By the dawn light he had crawled from beneath the overturned furnishings of his cabin. Blood matted his thick hair at the back of his skull, and his head throbbed with a deafening ache—so that he had sat dumbly for a long while, trying to recollect the events of the night. Something had come through the door, had hurled him aside like a spumed doll. And the girl had vanished—carried off by the demon? Her warning had been for him; for herself she evidenced not fear, only resigned despair.
Or had some of his men returned to carry out their threats? Had too much wine, the blow on his head . . .? But no, Mavrsal knew better. His assailants would have robbed him, made certain of his death—had any human agency attacked him. She had called herself a sorcerer’s mistress, and it had been sorcery that spread its black wings over his caravel. Now the girl had returned, and Mavrsal’s greeting was tempered by his awareness of the danger which shadowed her presence.
Dessylyn must have known his thoughts. She backed away, as if to turn and go.
“Wait!” he called suddenly.
“I do
n’t want to endanger you any further.”
Mavrsal’s quick temper responded. “Danger! Kane can bugger with his demons in Hell, for all I care! My skull was too thick for his creature to split, and if he wants to try his hand in person, I’m here to offer him the chance!”
There was gladness in her wide eyes, as Dessylyn stepped toward him. “His necromancies have exhausted him,” she assured the other. “Kane will sleep for hours yet.”
Mavrsal handed her over the rail with rough gallantry. “Then perhaps you’ll join me in my cabin. It’s grown too dark for carpentry and I’d like to talk with you. After last night, I think I deserve to have some questions answered anyway.”
He struck fire to a lamp and turned to find her balanced at the edge of a chair, watching him nervously. “What sort of questions?” she asked in an uneasy tone.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
Mavrsal made a vague gesture. “Why everything. Why did you get involved with this sorcerer? Why does he hold to you, if you hate him so? Why can’t you leave him?”
She gave him a sad smile that left him feeling naive. “Kane is . . . a fascinating man; there is a certain magnetism about him. And I won’t deny the attraction his tremendous power and wealth held for me. Does it matter? It’s enough to say that there was a time when we met, and I fell under Kane’s spell. It may be that I loved him once—but I’ve since hated too long and too deeply to remember.
“But Kane continues to love me in his way. Love! His is the love of a miser for his hoard; the love of a connoisseur for some exquisitely wrought carving; the love a spider feels for its imprisoned prey! I’m his treasure, his possession—and what concern are the feelings of a lifeless object to its owner! Would the curious circumstance that his prized statue might hate him lessen the pleasure its owner derives from its possession?
“And leave him?” Her voice broke. “By the gods, don’t you think I’ve tried!”
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