by James Silke
“Nobody has missed it! We are not followed.”
The group expressed relief, and Brown John grinned with triumph at Cobra. “You see, Black Veshta has not been offended by my touch. In fact, I think she likes it.”
Cobra smiled reservedly, and Gath, in a harsh impatient tone, asked, “Is it truly the map? Can you read it?”
“Indeed it is,” said Brown John, grinning approval at Cobra. “She’s gone over it carefully with me.” He removed the black statuette from his tunic and pointed at a spot on the conelike base. “When we reach the end of the Way of Chains, we should be approximately here. Then we move northwest over dunes.” His finger followed a line winding over the cone’s undulating surface to the knees emerging from it. “Somewhere here, we’ll find the river called Staboulle. It may have changed its course slightly, but we’ll find it soon enough. Then we travel along the river, directly west.” His finger rode up the depression between the icon’s legs to the groin, and tapped the pubic region. “There, at the junction of the two rivers, is a caravansary, En Sakalda.” His finger wandered over the belly. “From there, we take the Way of the Scorpion across a wilderness Of lava beds called the Belly of Black Veshta until we come to a mountain range, the Breasts of Black Veshta, then take the pass between them.” His finger slid between the cleavage to the throat. “About here we’ll reach the Inland Sea, and the giant rock which supports Pyram.”
Gath nodded his satisfaction and put his hard eyes on Cobra. The color promptly drained from her face, and she pulled away from him. His hand grabbed her by the upper arm and dragged her struggling and protesting out of the driver’s box, threw her to the ground. She landed in an awkward sprawl, grunting painfully. Her body instinctively tried to rise, but her head sagged dizzily against the earth, blood draining from temple and lip.
The bukko leapt up in the box, shouting, “What are you doing?” Jakar and Robin, startled and alarmed, moved to help Cobra, but Gath’s glare stopped them.
“Get back in the wagon,” he said, and turned to Brown John. “You ride ahead, I’ll catch up.”
“Hold on a moment!” Brown John blurted. “Let’s not be hasty, Gath.” He scrambled down from the driver’s box and kneeled over Cobra, his hands cradling her heaving body. Then he looked up at Gath and added, “We still need her. She’s the only one who can read the map, and we still need to know the distances and turns in the trail.”
“We’ll find a native to do that!”
“Perhaps, in time, we could. But it could cause delays, and since she’s been tremendously helpful, and given us no indication that she can’t be trusted, I think she deserves to be allowed to continue with us. Besides, we gave our word.”
“Yes,” said Robin, pushing forward.
Gath did not look at her. He said coldly, “She’s a serpent. When it suits her, she will betray us.”
He dismounted, and Brown John said, “Your point is well taken, friend, but it is also my point. Her nature can also be an asset to us. She has walked the very corridors of-evil we seek to penetrate, she has looked upon the secrets within their shadows, and she knows their mysteries, the natures of Pyram’s demon spawn, their disguises, forms, powers. We are going to need her help to find where the jewels are held. Besides, we have no time to find someone who can read the map.”
Gath’s eyes became wary.
Brown John held up the black doll. “According to this map, it could be, not four or five days, but eight or nine before we see the castle’s walls. That means you’ll have to control the hungers that headpiece has planted inside you twice as long as you thought.”
“Do not worry about me, bukko.”
“On the contrary, I must worry about everything.”
Cobra half rose, and Brown John helped her to her feet. She straightened slightly and looked up under her arched eyes at Gath, blood spidering over her cheek. It was a more than appropriate cosmetic for the expression on her face. When she spoke, her voice was low and controlled.
“If you are going to kill me, Dark One, I suggest you use your hands. It will give the helmet far more pleasure… and give you an idea of how it will feel when the helmet’s hungers overwhelm your pride and you put them around Robin’s neck.”
Robin gasped sharply and withdrew behind Jakar’s shoulder, her eyes on Gath.
Gath again took no notice and said to Brown John, “You are growing soft, friend. A month ago, she would have killed us all if she’d had the chance.”
“I agree,” Brown John said evenly, “but she’s changed. She’s human now, just like the rest of us.” His eyes held Gath’s, refusing to release them. “Listen to me, friend. There is more to this quest than you or I understand. There are hidden powers at play, and if they have brought us this far, it would be madness to alter the cast now. Utter folly.”
Gath stared coldly at Brown John for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. “I cannot follow your fancy twaddle, old friend, but if you believe it, I will accept that and allow her to live… under one condition.” He removed a chain from his saddlebags and handed it to Brown John. “Keep her chained to your belt, night and day, or she dies.”
Sometime later, as the wagon rolled down the western side of the mountains, the sand dunes came into view. Beyond them the sun was setting, flooding the sky with sweeping blankets of oranges and pinks. Cobra, sitting beside Brown John in the driver’s box, stared silently ahead, her beautiful face thrust regally into the dying light. A chain was attached to the belt spanning her narrow waist. It wound down over her fleshly thigh and across the seat to an iron loop on Brown John’s belt. Her fingers fondled it idly as she spoke over the steady din of hoofbeats and rumbling wheels.
“You have a rare gift of twaddle, old man. I have never heard such eloquent lies spoken with such conviction.”
“Are you sure they were lies?” he asked behind a raised brow.
She smiled. “Whatever they were, your words saved my life, and I would like to thank you for them. But as I am no longer a queen, I have nothing of value to reward you with. And as it has been a very long time since I was a mere woman, I am not at all certain of what you might enjoy… or expect.” Brown John looked at her, and she turned her warm knowing eyes on him. “Perhaps, to maintain our disguises as low, rude traveling players, I should vulgarly offer you my body. It would be a cheap enough payment.”
He chuckled with delight and said, “That would indeed be a generous offer, but there is no need to even consider rewarding me. I expect nothing.”
“I thought as much,” she said in a tone implying she was greatly disappointed, and the flattery of it made his cheeks flush.
After a moment, he said, “I’m sorry he treated you so roughly. There was no call for it.”
“Do not be sorry,” she said offhandedly. “As I told you before, I expect as much… and I would not have him any other way. He is a warrior. One more death, more or less, is of small import to him. And… perhaps he is right, perhaps you should have killed me.”
Brown John looked at her, and she looked off at the sunset, as if it marked the ends of the world. “This being a mere woman is strange and frightening to me, and I do not trust myself.” She lifted the chain for him to see it. “You are wise to chain me, but I am sorry it is you who have to watch over me. I will try not to be a burden to you.”
He shrugged and put his eyes back on the road. She waited until he looked back at her, then scolded him with her eyes. “I warned you not to touch it, but you would not listen. And now you are anchored with a woman, night and day, for how long, only Black Veshta knows.” She laughed easily. “You are cursed, Brown, but it is your own fault.”
He chuckled, then said, “That all depends on your point of view.”
There were enough double meanings in his tone for a bedroom farce, and she turned away smiling her reserved smile so he could easily see it as he joyously whipped the horses forward.
Twenty-two
SPITFIRE
Tiyy stood waiting in the darkness of Pyram
’s underground tide pool. Behind her, at the far end of the entry passageway, faint red torchlight glowed, silhouetting her body, a furry black shadow crowned with a pyramid of wild, spiked hair. At the center of the pyramid, the whites of her eyes were thin almonds, as quarrelsome as hissing cats.
It was the hour before dawn, and the waves crashed and thundered unseen in the darkness, spilling into the pool. Vague bits of guttering torchlight graced spears of white foaming water, momentarily reflecting on a group of the Nymph Queen’s household guards lined up at the back of the ledge. Their foppish scarlet uniforms had been replaced with buckskin and steel, and their weapons were no longer decorated. Huge, muscled, handsome louts with biceps for brains, she had handpicked them earlier that night and magically altered them into obedient weapons of flesh and bone.
When the water subsided, Tiyy removed a slim hand from her robe and beckoned with a finger at the orange glow behind her. The faltering sounds of sandals slapping the floor came from the far end of the passage, as someone started toward her, and she moved to the edge of the ledge, knowing even in the darkness exactly where it was. Cold water splashed over her sandaled feet, and the wet cold air made her cheeks tingle. She breathed deep, loving it, and parted her furs slightly so the air could stroke her throat and breasts and belly.
Across the pool, fog crept through the tunnel that linked the pool to the Inland Sea. It was banked just above the churning sea water, and within its formless tumbling body there was the grey glow of day’s first light. The mist moved cautiously, like the fingers of a blind man exploring the face of a stranger, then suddenly burst forward as sea water filled the tunnel behind it. There was a flash of total darkness, then the light brightened and speared through a wave of green water laced with foam, and the huge white barrel of Baskt’s body erupted from the face of the wave. Both water and fish arched out through the darkness above the pool, and crashed thunderously into it, sending geysers of water to the far corners of the shadowed cave.
Darkness again filled the tide pool, and the water quieted. The sound of slapping sandals stopped beside Tiyy, and she felt Schraak’s small body brush against her fur. He was shifting with fear and uncertainty, and the white almonds of her eyes thinned with a smile.
After Schraak and Baskt had returned to Pyram with the bodies of the Grillard dancing girls, the aging Nymph Queen had commanded them to stay out of her sight until she returned from her laboratory. At that time she would send for them, and either reward them for their success or punish them for their failure. She had then closeted herself in her laboratory, put on the sacred vestments of the high priestess of Black Veshta and consulted the secret sacerdotal writings of the ancients. When the formulas were selected and the priests had prepared the required rites, she had then transformed the girls’ meat and bone and blood into salves that could be administered to her flesh, and potions that could feed her body and soul. Three days she had spent underground, and now she had summoned her two lords to give them what was due them. But the darkness hid her from their view, and they still had no idea of whether they had succeeded or failed.
Feeling kittenish, she stood silent in the darkness for a long moment, toying with them as if they were mice. Then she said sharply, “Now!”
Her word echoed around the cave, and the sounds of grunting men came from the darkness nearby, then the squeal of wood on wood, and she hummed with pleasure. Her guards were pulling the locking peg from the winch. There was a sudden clatter of chains, and the thud of counterweights bumping inside rock walls, then the squeal and rattle of the winch unwinding and a heavy iron door lowering somewhere inside the cave.
Schraak shivered at the sound, touching her furs, and she slapped his hands away, drawing a strangled whimper.
The rush of sea water momentarily subsided, and fog again entered, bringing the vague daylight. The mist now swirled through the grilles of an iron gate that was slowly descending from the roof of the sea tunnel to seal it off.
Schraak shrieked and fell to the floor with his forehead pressed against the wet stone. “Forgive me, great one! Forgive me,” he whimpered.
Simultaneously, Baskt swirled violently within the confining pool and dove toward the sea tunnel. There was still a small opening below the descending gate offering escape. A wave crashed through the tunnel, and the shark plunged into it. There was a thudding crunch of meat and cartilage ramming rock and iron, and the cave shook, dust and pebbles falling away from the ceiling to drop noisily into the pool.
Tiyy chuckled with moody pleasure. The waves had subsided again, and the wan daylight revealed Baskt once more circling in the confining tide pool. His pointed grey snout was washed with blood, and serrated teeth dangled from his lip. He slashed one way and then the other, then dove deep and circled. A rusty iron grille door now sealed off the hole at the bottom of the pool. He bumped into it again and again, still seeking escape, then thrust upward. He burst up out of the water in front of Tiyy with his massive jaws spread wide. But she was out of reach, and he dropped back into the pool, splashing geysers of water to the ceiling.
Tiyy lifted a hand, gave a command with fluttering fingers, and long orchid nails glittered at the ends of smooth brown fingers.
The rumbling sounds of heavy iron wheelbarrows came from within the entry passage, grew louder quickly, and Tiyy crossed like a shadow to the far end of the ledge with the small smooth man crawling after her. There she stood waiting in the blackest shadow.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a glimmer of orange light adorned her face, warming the whites of heavy-lidded sloping eyes, caressing florid pink cheeks and blood-red lips.
The light came from the entry passageway where a deep red glow grew brighter and brighter as the rumbling of the wheelbarrows grew louder and louder. Then the first barrow appeared, a crude rectangular bowl supported by one iron wheel and propelled by a squat hooded slave. His arms were as thick as young oaks and as long as full-grown legs. Heaped in the wheelbarrow were glowing red-hot stones.
The slave dumped the rocks into the pool without ceremony. They hissed and spit and splashed, and Baskt fled for the opposite side.
Schraak lifted his face off the ground, using both hands to smear the slime away from his small beady eyes, and stared in shocked terror.
Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of hot stones was dumped into the pool until a hot light was cast throughout the cave and steam loomed like a cloud on the ceiling.
Trembling, Schraak rose slightly and looked up over a slick grey shoulder at the Nymph Queen. He gasped in shock, and a smile jerked on his mushy pockmarked face. It had a slightly mad leer, and he laughed in giddy disbelief.
Tiyy, with deliberation, was looking directly at Schraak, giving him a full view of her face.
The flesh on her broad forehead, and on the firm balls of her cheeks and small pointed chin, was brown and smooth and unblemished. There was not a wrinkle at the corner of either eye, nor did one crease her full lips. Her rouges were gaudy and thick, and her bilious yellow hair was luxurious. It stood straight out from her head in pomaded spikes forming a striking pyramid. Her eyes were a vivid white and pearly grey. Hostile. Quarrelsome. Playful. The eyes of a vixen spitfire not yet out of her teens.
“Holy Yang!” Schraak gasped, and again laughed madly.
She said, “You are brave to laugh,” but her eyes said something else.
Schraak did not notice. “I hardly recognized you,” he said. “It is a miracle. You… you’re the Mother of Desire herself! A goddess! Black Veshta incarnate!” He laughed out of control.
“Stop chortling, worm,” she said irritably, “and watch your friend. The surprises have only begun.”
Schraak stopped short at her tone and looked back at the tide pool. He shuddered so fitfully, he lost his footing and dropped back to all fours.
The sea water above the glowing stones had begun to churn and simmer, then small bubbles exploded on the pool’s surface as it began to boil. Baskt was thrashing on the far side, diving
for the cool depths, a constant blur of white movement. The boiling became more intense, great bubbles of air exploding on the surface beside the ledge, then spreading throughout the pool.
Again and again the great shark threw his body up out of the water for relief, jaws agape. But there was no escape. His white barrel began to darken, and his teeth dropped from his softening gums. Slowly he rolled over to float belly-up, still thrashing feebly.
Schraak, his teeth chattering, looked up at the Nymph Queen in dumb confusion.
She considered him a moment and parted her fur robe, revealing the trim, tight-skinned body of a voluptuous girl. Except for a girdle of silver chain mail and diamonds, and the short paddle-shaped pendant dangling from it, she was naked. She was still small with short arms, but as pliant as new grass and as round as a dowel. Her breasts were firm balls of flesh as quarrelsome as her eyes. Her belly was flat and hard, descending to swelling hips slightly wider than her narrow shoulders, and her legs were luscious invitations to all that rose above them. Barefoot, brown and dangerous.
Schraak stammered, “I… I don’t understand! Why… why do you torture him? Your infallible flesh is perfection.”
“Because he failed!” she snapped peevishly. “What you are now privileged to ogle is the result of my hard labor, not of his! And not yours, you worthless worm! The girl was not among those you delivered to me!”
“But… but your wrinkles. They’re gone.”
“Be still,” she said crossly. “That is only because of a lucky accident, and my unusual skills. Whoever the bukko was who selected the Grillard dancing girls, he had an unusual gift of sight. Their beauty and spirit were terribly strong, and fortunately suited to my own. Brazen, vulgar, sensual,” her voice tittered, “and shameless. I was able to extract their Kaas from their blood and meat, and use it to restore my beauty, as well as some of my strength. But it is not permanent! It won’t last me the year! And it took days of endless labor! Torturous hours of sweating over cooking flasks and stinking potions! None of which would have been necessary if you had delivered the right girl.”