by James Silke
His eyes avoided a door at the opposite side of the buried room. Heavy steel bars locked it shut. He could picture Baak, Dazi, Hatta, and Cobra’s servant waiting for him beyond that door in his hidden laboratory. But they would never see their priest again, or anyone else. He had no doubt that it was the Queen of Serpents’ fault, that her lust for the Death Dealer had been the cause for the current calamity. But what more could he have done, or what more could he do now than he was doing? He could not afford to trust anyone.
He pattered over to a side stairway and listened. Loud grating sounds came from within the surrounding walls where weighty stones began to shift and slide. A stone receded in the ceiling of his chamber releasing a stream of sand. It began to flood the room. Faint cries came from behind the locked door where the same thing was happening, then there was a heavy pounding on the door. His unfortunate servants had finally realized their fate.
Dang-Ling eased his ample body up through a dark hole at the top of the stairway. A large stone descended behind him and the rising sand piled up against it.
A short time later a wagon with tall red wheels rattled out a postern gate in Bahaara’s north wall, and rolled southeast into the desert hidden behind its own dust. “Big Hands” Gazul drove. Dang-Ling was ensconced comfortably on thick cushions in the wagon bed accompanied by six young leopards and several chests of jewels and gold. The road ahead was clear. A great deal of what he had cherished lay buried under Bahaara, but a promising future waited ahead, and he did not look back.
Sixty-nine
MIDNIGHT STAR
For five days the Barbarians looted Bahaara, and each night there was a great feast held in the Court of Life. At each feast, the meat and cooking were provided by a different tribe. Rumors said that one night they were served the roasted body of the warlord Klang. But the way in which the Kranik savages charred their meat left it unrecognizable, and since the rumors had started after the meat had been consumed, the impropriety could not be proven, and the after-meal belching was particularly loud and raucous. The Grillards provided songs and dances for each feast, and they all told the same story. But the hero had a plethora of names: The “Dark One who dwelled in The Shades,” the “Savior of Weaver,” the “Defender of the Trees,” and the “Lord of Forest.” But to each description was added “Death Dealer.”
On the sixth night there was no celebration. Instead, the Barbarian chiefs sat in council and, after much deliberation, came to a radical conclusion. Gath of Baal would be their king, the first king the tribes of the Forest Basin had ever set over themselves. The decision was unanimous, and Brown John sent Robin Lakehair to fetch him.
Delighted to be the carrier of such good news, she hurried to the altar room in the Temple of Dreams where Gath was quartered, but he wasn’t there. After searching the temple without success, she found him in a torchlit courtyard at the rear of the temple, but hesitated to approach, holding her little hand pressed against her heart.
The dark warrior was dressed in black chain mail. A curved Kitzakk sword hung from his belt by a glittering brass chain. His huge axe stood in the black stallion’s saddle holster. The horned helmet was tied to his belt. He was clean shaven, but his singed hair was crudely clipped so that it hung to his neck in wild disarray. His face was scabbed and burnished with callouses. He turned to her expectantly, and Robin, frightened and flustered, ran over to him.
“You can’t leave,” she gasped. “Not now, Gath. Please.”
His hand reached out to gently gather in her short red-gold hair flickering in the torchlight. “I must, little friend.”
“But why?” she pleaded. “Why? Where would you want to go? And… and the people love you. The tribes want you to be their king.”
Gath shook his head. “I am not a king, and I have been too long among men.”
She trembled at the uncompromising tone of his voice, then, breathless, she gazed up into his eyes. “Let me go with you then?”
He shook his head, swung up onto his saddle.
“Please,” she begged.
He leaned down, took hold of her under the arms and lifted her to face him, holding her as easily as a flower. A rush of hope burst through her, and she smiled. He kissed her smile where it moved her cheek, then pressed her lips against his, and she melted, moaning blissfully.
He held her away. “I will come see you, in your village, but I can not take you with me. Stay with your friends where it’s safe.”
“But it’s you I feel safe with.” He set her down, but her eyes still begged. “Gath, please, don’t you still need me a little?”
His eyes turned towards the distant northwest. “Where I go, I must go alone.”
“Then I’ll be waiting! I don’t care if it’s a year or ten years. I’ll be waiting for you. I… I belong to you.”
He shook his head, saying quietly, “People do not own people, Robin.”
His eyes were warm and tender but resolute, and something hid behind them, a new wound that was deep and active. Her head dropped. It was a wound she could not heal, because, even though she could see it and fee! the terrible pain it brought him, she could not imagine its nature.
“If ever you are in danger,” he said softly, “look for me. I will come.”
Her face lifted, a beautiful mask hiding all that was inside. “And you, if you are ever hurt or in need, you will let me find you, and come to you. Promise me that, at least that.”
He looked away in silence.
“Then good-bye, Gath of Baal,” she whispered. “I won’t watch you go.”
She headed for the door of the temple. Gath watched her figure disappear, then he and the stallion moved across the yard and under the shadowed gate.
At the rear door of the temple, Robin met Brown John coming out and fell into his arms, sobbing, “He’s gone. He doesn’t want us.”
Brown John patted her head. “Now, now, child, we’ll see about that. You wait here.”
She slumped to the door stoop and sank back against the jamb as the old man hurried off.
Brown John found him riding slowly down the road that twisted along the western side of the mesa. In the distance was the northern gate, and beyond it, the desert: empty, silent and dark. The old man, wheezing from his short run, looked up accusingly. “This is not a very civilized way to bid good-bye!”
Gath smiled ruefully. “Have you been trying to civilize me, old man?”
“Never mind that. I told you they would make you king. Surely you’ll at least stay the night to consider it!” Getting no reply he sighed. “All right, all right. But tell me what it is that you think you’re up to?”
“The Master of Darkness hunted me. Now I hunt him.”
“That’s madness, and you know it!” Getting only silence he grunted. “I suppose then, you’re not going to give up that headpiece?”
“Never.” It was low and deep, from another world.
“But the Master of Darkness! It’s impossible to…” he stopped himself and sighed with resignation. “Oh, what’s the use. You’ll try this thing regardless of what I say.”
Gath smiled, and the old man laughed at his own defeat. “Well, I will tell you this, my friend, there has never been such a futile quest, never one of such size and nobility, and never one so reckless.” A familiar twinkle flashed across his eyes. “However, if you were to become king, even if only for a short while, you could build up your resources for the hunt. And there would be no chains to bind you to your throne. You might appoint me as your minister. I would attend to all the routine nonsense, and leave you to live however you wished to live. You’d be loved and respected. You could even return to your forest if you wished, come and go undisturbed and unchallenged!”
Brown John stopped short. Flushed with embarrassment, he confronted Gath’s stony countenance. “Built my own trap, didn’t I? And blundered right into it. Well, I’m me, I guess, and you surely are you. There’s no changing that. Go to your challenge, Gath. But whether you want it or not,
the gratitude and respect of the forest tribes go with you.”
Gath didn’t appear to hear him. He said, “Look after her, bukko. We will meet again.”
“Yes,” Brown John’s voice cracked. He paused and cleared his throat. “But one moment, I have something for you. A gift.” He reached inside his pouch and brought out the small earthenware jar with the tiny air holes, handed it to Gath. “This may be a useful too! of barter, or a toy. That’s up to you. It houses the Serpent Queen.”
A rare look of surprise and delight lit up Gath of Baal’s solemn features. He put the jar to his cheek feeling the imprisoned reptile’s movement, and his eyes smiled at Brown John.
“You did this?”
Brown John, swelling with pride, nodded several times.
“Well now, I expected you to say and do many things, Brown, all of them quite out of the ordinary. But never this.”
Brown John laughed uproariously at the mimicry of his own dialogue. Gath put the jar in his saddlebag, squeezed the old man’s raised hand, and moved on down the road.
He trotted across the moonlit clearing just inside the northern gate, and galloped out into the waiting desert shadows. The moonlight gleamed on his broad shoulders for a long time, then he became part of the darkness.
Brown John found Robin sitting on a stone watching, and gathered her in his arms. “I’m sorry, little one,” he murmured. “I could not talk him out of it.”
She looked off at the spreading desert. The dark night sky was wearing one radiating white jewel, the midnight star. After a moment, she said softly, “Brown John, someday, somehow, I will find a way to be with him. I will, I swear it by the midnight star.”
“I think you might, Robin. I think you just might.” She gazed up at him, comforted, and saw the reflection of the star twinkling in his eyes.
Seventy
COUNCIL OF CHIEFS
The Barbarian tribes were angered by Gath of Baal’s refusal to be their king, but it did not blunt their resolve to become organized and possess a champion whose magic was contagious for times of emergency. To resolve the problem, the Council of Chiefs argued and consulted throughout the night.
The next day the council announced their decision. As the bukko, Brown John, with his foresight and possible magic, had compelled the Death Dealer to act as their champion during this last, great emergency, and as his Grillards had organized and supplied the Barbarian Army, they invited Brown John to sit permanently with the Council of Chiefs. In addition, for the duration of any emergency, the bukko would serve as their leader. It was assumed by all, of course, that the old stage master still had the power to compel Gath of Baal to serve as their champion, and Brown John did not offer to confuse them with the facts. As no one considered Robin Lakehair to be more than a momentary romantic distraction for Gath, her name was not brought up at all.
Brown John formally accepted the offer, and made no mention of her either.
After hearty congratulations all-around, the tribes packed up and moved out the northern gate heading for the Great Forest Basin. They left Bahaara in flames. It burned brilliantly for hours, then the flames died leaving a blackened, smoking skeleton city to be ravaged by the sands and time.
The Barbarians were no longer an army. They were tribes again, and traveled on separate trails. All, that is, except for the Grillards. They accompanied the Cytherians. They followed them across the desert, down through The Narrows and across Foot Bridge. There they said their sentimental good-byes, and Robin turned east for Weaver. The Grillards continued north on Amber Road back to the Valley of Miracles.
Seventy-one
WEAVER
Reaching home, Robin and the Cytherian warriors were greeted warmly and with great honor and celebration. Robin was given a place of honor at the feast, anointed with incense and garlands of flowers, and, even though she was wan, pale and stood out vulgarly in her short hair, was praised as a daring and courageous girl of virtue and beauty. During the following weeks, the children came flocking to hear her tell of her adventures. Their adoration, along with a steady diet of milk, hardy bread and fresh fruit, quickly nourished her back to health and lifted her spirits so that once more she began to echo the melodies of the birds and the laughter in the ripple of the brook.
But when the wounded veterans of the campaign dragged their crippled limbs back into the taverns to tell their version of the war, things began to change. The soldiers relieved their aches and pains with quantities of hard wine and wildly exaggerated tales of their battles, laying dark emphasis on all that was unnatural, mysterious and brutal: the satanic appearance of the Queen of Serpents, the devil fire within the horned helmet, the horrible transformation of the warlord into a hideous reptile, and the long, unexplained and intimate visits Robin Lakehair had paid the Dark One in his secret home in The Shades, a place where strong men feared to travel, yet a place from which she always returned unhurt and in remarkable health.
As these tales, along with those of the unholy carnage done by the Death Dealer and his axe, circulated, they grew uglier and more sinister according to the appetites of both the tellers and listeners. Consequently, many of the villagers who had suffered loss of loved ones during the conflict, were uncomfortably reminded of their unhappiness, and disturbed by unnatural fears. The stories, after becoming old and revolting, stopped. But Robin was an ever-present reminder of times best forgotten. And, as she herself had suffered no ill effects from her very questionable adventures, rumors began that she was in some way tainted by them.
If she was, of course, she could contaminate the holy work and spoil the cloth, so her spindle was taken away and given to another girl. Robin tried to bear up under the hurtful insult, believing that time would eventually restore her tribe’s belief in her.
But it was the gossip that was fed by time, and Robin, who could not comprehend these attacks against her, did not know how to argue against them. The situation compounded. She was shunned at the well, and the children were led from her presence. She spent much time in the forest, but too much time alone brought on a deep melancholy, and it became more and more difficult for her to return to her room in the evening.
Then one night she dreamed of the children themselves reviling her. She woke up drenched in sweat and sobbing. Panic made her heart pound and showed in her eyes. She jumped out of bed, threw on her bone-white tunic and slipped into her soft leather boots. With her belongings packed in a bedroll, and tied to her back, she dashed out of Weaver before first light. Her sacred whorl was held tight in her fist. But there were shadows under her eyes, and no lilt in her stride. There was no longer a friend to whom she dared say good-bye.
When she arrived at Pinwheel Crossing, the morning sun was beating down on her hair and shoulders. She studied the many signs marking the roads: Amber Road which would take her she did not know where, the road to Coin and the Kavens, then the road to Dowat territory. But they only made tears well in her eyes. She glanced back down Weaver Road, and looked at the sacred whorl in her fist. Defiantly she flung the whorl into the surrounding foliage and started down the Way of the Outlaw.
She had no other choice. She was an outcast.
Seventy-two
RAG CAMP
Robin reached Stone Crossing when the sun was low in the western sky. She climbed to its heights and paused there, gazing down at the camp spread out among the apple trees in the clearing beyond the river. A tentative smile lifted the corners of her small pert mouth, but before she was halfway down the slope, the smile was moving with abandon into her cheeks.
There were children playing on the ground under the trees. Seeing her approach, they stopped their game, and crowded around her, bombarding her with questions.
“Who are you?”
“What’s your name?”
“Did you come to see the show?”
“Are you going to stay?”
Robin listened with delight, then covered her ears playfully and they laughed, quieted. She considered them for a
moment with warning eyes, then asked, “Are you going to let me say something, or aren’t strangers allowed to talk in Rag Camp?”
They smiled shyly, and nodded.
“All right,” she said, then squatted facing their small active faces. “Now, I am looking for a man called Brown John, is he here?”
“Oh yes,” they squealed.
They took her hands and led her across the clearing toward the stage where the three colorful wagons served as backdrops.
“He’s over here.”
“In the red wagon.”
“That’s his house.”
“Really?” Robin gasped admiringly, “I thought it was just part of the stage.”
“Oh no! It’s his wagon.”
“The best in the whole camp.”
“He’s real important.”
“And bossy.”
“But don’t be frightened.”
“He’ll like you.”
“Because you’re pretty,” put in the littlest one.
Robin laughed, picked her up with a squeeze. They all hurried to the raised stage, and the children pushed Robin up onto it. They began to shout at the upstairs window; Brown John stuck his frowsy head out and shouted right back, “What is it now? I told you not to bother me during my nap. Do I have to…”
He stopped abruptly seeing Robin’s face smiling up at him, then said quietly, “My, my.” He turned on the children shouting, “Let her in, you noisy imps. She’s late, very, very late!”
After the evening meal, Brown John held court on the stage to determine Robin’s status with the Grillards. He sat on a large thronelike chair facing Robin. Gathered around them, sitting on stools and the floor, were the tribe’s principal players: Mother Drab, Krell the Rubber Man, Bone, Dirken, Nose the Fool, and Belle and Zail, the lead dancing girls.