She was standing poised at the entrance to the Tomb. One false move, he knew, and she would be gone.
What then? His men were glorified night watchmen. If he summoned help, they’d all be executed. If he led them into the Tomb to catch her, they’d be fighting this tigress in darkness and water.
Why hadn’t he taken his mother’s advice and joined the priesthood?
As a matter of fact… with his share of the loot… he could buy himself a fine position in the priesthood!
And thus they went to the brothel that Tiana knew. All services were bought with one string of unusually valuable pearls — and a large jewelled comb for the overweight proprietor of that temple of pleasure and service to mankind.
*
On the morrow Tiana awakened in an inn some distance from the house of pleasure. Her temper was as bad as her headache. After breakfast — which the shrivelled little innkeeper served to her as timidly as if she were the king’s pet lion — she went to the stables.
Her horse and mule were safe, and all she’d left with them was undisturbed — including the hands and other arm of Derramal. She even had her rapier and thief’s kit, the sergeant of last night having appropriated them after her previous capture; she had repurchased them at the price of a valueless piece of green glass. Aye, for before the drinking reached prodigious celebratory levels, better light and clearer eyes had shown that many of the jewels were worthless imitations. Apparently, many of the occupants of the Tomb of Kings had been robbed even ere they took up residence.
How fortunate that there was a pair of emeralds and the sergeant too drunk to know which was real… or…
Instantly she pulled open her sack and held her emerald to the light — only to hurl it from her.
“Cow Dung and Turtle Droppings!”
As she checked her sack, she swore the more. Why should those lazy barracks rats get more than half the loot? All they’d done was hold out their dishonest hands.
It wasn’t fair.
Yesterday she’d been chained naked, buried alive, assaulted by a ghoul, half-drowned and had come just short of being knifed, poisoned, blown to pieces, and publicly tortured to death. A hard day’s work. She’d earned the jewels.
After taking a deep breath and letting it out, she thought of the captain. He, at least, had paid for his share of the spoils.
While she and the Guardsmen haggled over each exact share, there had been much whispering among them, whispering, winking and exchanging of knowing leers. Not surprisingly when the business was all seemingly settled, the captain had insisted that Tiana accompany him to the rear gardens — to see something “truly extraordinary.”
Apparently he had poured considerable courage from his wine bottle.
Tiana could have forgiven him if, maddened by her great beauty, he had tried to force his affections on her. The captain, however, made it all too clear that rape was a mere incidental in their plot to rob and murder her. As commander, he was taking the first turn.
Perhaps instead of recovering her weapons and share of the spoils and then fleeing, she should have stayed, given the men some of what their officer received.
As for the captain — if he recovered from his wound, he might treat women with a little more respect. If he did not recover, she felt vaguely sorry for him. Still, if he was going to enter the priesthood, it shouldn’t make any great difference.
*
The sun was high, the morning well spent, and she several leagues down a road that wound through peaceful farm country. The wind that tossed her burgundy hair had for the moment swept away all angry thoughts. She had gained four parts of Derramal and, far more important, she felt she had most of the clues she needed to solve the evil riddle of Derramal and Lamarred.
10 The City of Shadows
Caranga to his beloved Tiana, by way of the log of Vixen:
Though the spiders of Serancon’s isle had slain none of my men, the effects of their venom faded but slowly. I strove to let them recuperate, and did but wallow on to the coast of what you benighted members of the pale race call the Dark Land. Even then, having wasted days upon days, I had but a score of men able to make the overland trek to Killiar. As delay always costs more than it repays, I dropped anchor in a sheltered bay and left most of the crew to recover while I and the twenty marched inland. The trek was long and fairly hard, but without incident.
When I and my eleven men reached Killiar — oh. No. I did not allow nine to die. They were part of that group of galley slaves we liberated off the Narokan merchant ship that started all this. As it fell out, each had left several wives behind, with numerous children. In the villages we passed, those asses were so foolish as to bray boasts of their adventures. The jungle drums carried the story, and soon their wives arrived to drag them home. Back to slavery for them, and I doubt they’ll gain freedom this time!
Lamarred’s map gave information about Killiar, as follows:
No nations are there on the great southern continent called the Dark Land, but areas controlled by various tribal groups. Once this was nearly changed, by the great warrior Nagranda. By his conquests and several advantageous marriages, he built a sizable empire and established a capital, Killiar. The empire disintegrated on Nagranda’s death. The city prospered until eight years agone, when the citizens fled. The deserted city houses both the feet of Derramal and a fabled treasure, the Egg of the Phoenix. This is a cut and polished diamond of ten thousand facets, egg-shaped and large as a man.
This was most interesting of a surety, Tiana, but it raised questions. If the sweet treasure was unguarded, why had no one stolen it? Indeed, why had such a proud city been abandoned?
The villagers had no useful information. All did know the legend of the origin of the egg. Over five centuries agone, a fantastic bird flew over Killiar. Its wings were a hundred feet across and of shining bright colours. Three times this sweet, feathered rainbow passed over the city ere it landed. Its great size frightened the people, but it proved to be peaceful, and ate the grain given it. The bird continued in the city for seven days — when there was a mysterious fire.
Afterward, the bird was gone without trace and the gigantic diamond called the Egg was found.
The same men who were ready to swear to events of centuries long fled could not tell me what happened but eight years past. The people had fled from the city in panic, yet no one knows why. Their ruler had been frightened to the point of being permanently afraid of the dark. When the new great-house was built, he ordered lamps to bum all night on every wall. One oldster swore that this king feared not darkness, but something else: that he ordered the constant illumination because he feared shadows, having none of his own!
Apart from such nonsensical tales, it was known with certainty only that men entered the city from time to time. If they went by day, they generally returned having seen nothing out of the ordinary. Those who entered Killiar by night were never seen again.
It was late afternoon, daughter, when we arrived at the rubbly outskirts of abandoned Killiar. I had caution enough not to enter. While the men set up camp outside the walls, I climbed a hill overlooking the city. As I had been told, it was a strange mix. Many buildings were those normal throughout most lands, huts with palm-thatched roofs and tightly woven walls of grass and reeds. Most were simple two-room structures. Others were elaborate mansions with many rooms and fronted with elaborately carved planks that were inlaid with many different shades of wood — beautiful, in truth.
Naturally, every building was decayed from years of abandonment.
That is as it should be. My people — my former people — know that a hut is a nearly living thing. Its roof breathes so that the interior is cool despite the sun’s blazing heat. Even without windows, the interior is filled with a soft light that diffuses through the walls. It is natural that such a structure saddens and dies when it no longer serves man. The huts were built by my fellow blacks, while the other buildings were found there when my people came to this land.<
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They are alien structures, and they rise like spectres among the huts. Tall and of black stone they are, and completely without windows. Though they had stood untold ages, time had inflicted few scars on them. As I gazed down, I knew that the interiors of those towers must be black as the pit and hot as kettles on the fire. Why would anyone build such structures? The only creatures that like hot dark places are serpents and their kin.
I watched the sun set. The city became a maze of shifting shadows with no sweet sign of life. There was no sound and, though I was downwind of the city, no odours came to my nose — which you know, Tiana, to be keen as a hound’s.
I had imagined that some great monster guarded the incredible diamond. If so, it did not perform the usual functions of nature!
Full darkness fell. As I was about to return to camp, lights sprang up in the city! They were here and there on the walls of the black buildings, sometimes inside. I returned to my men troubled, and did not tell them of the lights. Ere I retired, I reminded Susha the Voluptuous that I was home and hoped she was watching kindly.
Next morning we entered to explore Killiar. Quickly we passed the empty huts and began to move among those looming, darkly brooding structures of black stone. There was no sound save our voices and footsteps. Dust was thick everywhere, and I noted that the only footprints were ours. The city was deserted — and yet when we came to a lamp set in a niche, I knew that it had burned last night. How then that it was wreathed with cobwebs and could not be lighted without disturbing them?
We exchanged looks that I admit were fearful. (The men’s, I mean. You know me to be without fear.)
At midday, we found the skeleton.
Its rotted clothing was that of a city dweller. Probably he had not fled when panic emptied his city, eight years agone. Whatever had caused his death, he had no broken bones. When one of the men lifted parts of the skeleton to prove this, I noticed a thing more than odd about those bones — they cast no shadow.
Apprehension hung on us now like a shroud while we continued our unfruitful search.
It was late afternoon when we made our first contact with the dwellers of abandoned Killiar.
Klain of Port Thark had separated himself from us by tarrying to examine something or other, and suddenly he cried out. We drew steel and rushed down an alley and around a comer… to find his corpse. There was no blood, none, but there were peculiar discolouration on his skin. Though the skin was not broken, the marks resembled sword wounds. But where was his killer? Klain had still been screaming when we entered the alley. Mere seconds had passed. There was no way past us, nor was there aught other way out. We banged the walls in search of secret doors. We called out challenges. We stared upward along those ugly black towers, seeking steps or windows.
We found nothing — until I myself spotted the enemy. He was standing behind the comer of a building, so that I saw only his shadow. I whirled and leapt at where he must be, and I assure you my sword was high and ready to slay.
Tiana… there was no one there.
Suddenly, Narata made a choking sound. Aye, old ever-jesting Narata! He stood in our midst with no enemy near him — and yet he was being strangled.
I have heard tales of invisible men, and directed my sword to where such an attacker should be. I must have looked insane, beating the air while Narata’s life was being squeezed away. It was when I glanced by accident at the ground that I saw the horror; Narata’s shadow was being strangled by the shadow of a man who was not there.
So I acted insanely again. I stepped into the sun and thrust so that the shadow of my sword thrust into the attacking shadow. Tiana, I swear — I felt resistance to my blade! And that phantom shadow writhed, lay still as death… and slowly faded!
Not a man of us but whose hair didn’t stand straight up. Mine was uncurled for an hour, I swear by Susha’s own curls.
Narata had hardly regained breath when the host of shadows came upon us. Small wonder the sweet people of Killiar had fled in panic — their shadows had rebelled and taken up independent life! Independent, and total hating of normal men! Now this eerie umbral host came to slay us, gliding grimly along walls and ground.
“If they slay our shadows we will die,” I yelled, and heard my voice high. I fought it down. “They can be slain only by the shadows of our blades!”
Our men understood, and in such a weird combat we proved superior to the attackers. Swords flashed in the sunlight like silver wheels, but it was their dark shadows that did the work of death — bloodlessly, Steel rang not against steel and, had any watched, he’d have thought us ridiculous prancing fools. But the battle was deadly. Though many shadows writhed and faded into naught from our thrusts and slashes, we too suffered strange and painful wounds. With our backs set against a wall, we stupidly supposed we could not be attacked from behind — until a man yelled and pointed, and I saw the shadow of a club raised above the head of my own shadow.
I moved! Unfortunately, I was not swift enough to avoid that blow entirely. After that, all was in shadow for your valiant Caranga!
I awoke in chains. My head throbbed. My back muscles ached, so that I knew I’d lain there many hours. When my eyes focused, I saw my men chained beside me, still unconscious. We were in a vast room that was lighted by a single little glim. This, I knew, was the dwelling place of the disembodied, Susha-abandoned shadows of Killiar.
Here, they moved not merely along walls and floor, but through the room. I could see them, almost solid, tangible forms. I saw their eyes, dead and soulless, mere grey ovals like ash. These… things were irefully destructive not from conscious cruelty, I realised, but of their own evil origin. Some would pity them.
I had no time for that; I was their prisoner, and they’d proven somehow substantial enough to chain me and my men. Now we were but seven.
There was no furniture in that black-walled room, only an altar in its centre.
On that dark stone lay a pair of mummified feet and beside it a large object, like a giant’s head covered by a black cloth. The Egg of the Phoenix, I was sure. We had succeeded in finding all we sought, but there was the inconvenient detail that we were in chains and surrounded by bodiless enemies.
I considered. They had taken us alive for some purpose. Since this place had the look of a temple, I felt they meant to use us in some grisly sacrifice.
Naturally, I examined my chains. Ah, the pleasant surprise! They were indeed set in ancient mortar, and it was indeed weak with age! Obviously, the Susha-abandoned shadows could not judge strength, mine or the chains. Nor had they maintained this building. I saw a pillar that was decayed with age, partially eaten away at its base. Years had rotted those ironwood timbers, and either their transformation from humanhood had affected the shadows’ brains, or those insubstantial wraiths paid no mind to such tangible matters.
Yet how could I make use of these errors on their part? If the roof fell, we would most likely be crushed, while — can a falling roof slay shadows? What were their weaknesses? I gave this much thought.
As they had not attacked us until dusk, they surely could not stand bright sunlight! As they burned lamps, they surely could not function in complete darkness! Shadows preferred the shadows, then. Ah, Tiana, what a mind is your father’s.
I footed the man beside me and bade him wake the others. “When the shadows are distracted, we must wrest ourselves free. If I can extinguish that lamp, we’ll be safe for a few minutes.”
Scarcely was my last man awake when the shadows gathered about a spot to the left of their altar. The bodiless things appeared to be waiting reverently for someone or something, and I delayed our bid for freedom. Perhaps there was a hole in the floor where they congregated? Something was coming, something I would have to brace in complete darkness. I wanted to see the thing these unnatural things worshiped before I made my try at putting out the lamp.
It came; I heard it. Slowly the thing of night slithered into the chamber.
It was huge, reptilian though not a
serpent. The eyes were old, old — more ancient than those buildings. And I had thought them only grim legends, about the Old Ones who had been here before the fathers of man! Their time was long past, by Susha’s eyes, but they had not departed in peace or with grace. With fire and steel and much spilling of their own blood of valour had the heroes of thrice-ancient times won the world for us from these fell creatures. Now this one, surely the last survivor of those enemies of humankind, had at its pleasure seven of the thieves who had stolen the world from it and its hideous kin. Small vengeance, for the loss of a whole world — to eat us seven!
It was time. A mingling of terror and resolution wrenched my chains loose in a spattering shower of mortar and bits of stone.
The shadows turned on me and unshining swords of darkness whirled up. I snatched up a goodly chunk of stone as I sprang up and, in the doing, I narrowly evaded a shadow-thing’s thrust. I ran at them, for the lamp threw my own shadow behind me, and then I was where I had to be. My heart was pounding furiously and my hands were wet with a chill sweat. I knew that I would have but one throw of my piece of stone, and that I must not let panic rob me of that throw — everything depended on it!
For just an instant I forced myself to stand motionless. Then I made my throw. The stone flew. A shadow came at me with his sword. It thrust, and I could not evade it. I was to die —
The stone struck the lamp, straight and true. The lamp toppled, and died. The enemy and their deadly umbral swords were now truly invisible. Shadowless, I could not be slain.
The sound of clanking metal and rending stone told me my men were breaking free. The Old One, though, was mine alone, and I had only my hands and the lengths of chain dangling from the manacles on my wrists — which were both bleeding by the way. I glided in the dark, holding my chains silent. I found the weak pillar I had noted, rotted ironwood beams. I felt out a piece of strong timber, and gave but a moment’s thought to the fact that the roof might come in on me — better to die like a warrior beneath tons of rock than to be swallowed alive like a rabbit eaten by a python!
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