by James Silke
Tiyy jumped nimbly over the lower teeth, landing barefoot in a splash of slime. She glanced around ropes of saliva hanging from the roof of the creature’s mouth at Robin as she lifted her head.
“We’ll meet again,” Tiyy said matter-of-factly, then plunged into the pinkish-grey throat and vanished in its shadows, the splat of her running feet echoing behind her.
Forty-three
INDIGESTION
The giant worm dropped its mouth closed, dislodging enough saliva to fill a washtub, and plugged the tunnel.
Gath looked around the cave.
Rubble was spilling in from the dungeon cell and deep cracks in the wall behind the staircase, and dust swirled, filling the black cave. Robin, Jakar and Brown John coughed and choked as it gagged them, settling thickly on hair, eyelids and shoulders. Cobra was now unconscious in the bukko’s arms, and bleeding on his chest.
Brown John answered the question in Gath’s eyes before he could ask it. “It’s the only way out.” He nodded at the giant worm. “You’ve got to get us past that creature.”
Gath nodded, glanced at Robin’s hope-filled eyes as they watched him, and rushed into the dust swirling out the cell.
Working almost blindly, he found the timber door and kicked it down. He ripped and twisted at a timber, and it came away from the debris wearing a large rusted hinge. Holding it in both massive hands, he advanced out of dust and stood face-to-face with the worm. Black smoke spewed from the helmet’s eye slits and the red glow reappeared within it.
The worm’s wrinkled face jerked and opened slightly, spreading webs of slime across thick blunt teeth.
Gath lowered his head, and flames erupted from the eye slits. They seared the worm’s face, and its spongy grey flesh puckered like the skin of a fig, the wet slime sizzling and steaming. Instinctively the creature writhed backward, cramming its shapeless head inside the tunnel, and spread its jaws. Saliva as thick as rope was strung between its teeth.
Gath swung the heavy timber, hammering the teeth with the rusted hinge, and three broke off, making an opening as wide as a door. He swung again, and the worm spit out a gob of saliva large enough to bathe in. The congealed liquid slurped around Gath’s legs, and he slipped, plunging forward out of control into the mouth, and it closed with a wet slap.
Inside the worm’s mouth, Gath rolled forward, slipping toward the digestive tract and barely hearing Robin’s faint scream outside. Still holding the timber, he wrestled it sideways, jamming it against the sides of the worm’s throat, and came to a sudden stop. Gathering his balance, he found he was knee-deep in guck, barely able to move his legs. He spewed flames around the interior of the worm’s mouth, and the instinctive creature writhed and again opened its mouth, trying to eject him with its convulsing body.
Gath held his ground, took hold of the timber and ripped it free. Then he thrust it up, this time jamming it vertically between the mushy jaws. He kicked at the base of it until the timber was firmly stuck in place with the creature’s jaws spread wide, and looked outside at Brown John.
“Come on! Hurry!” The three words were one harsh yell.
Brown John and the others hesitated, unable to accept for a moment the nature of the passageway offered to them. Then the bukko shouted, “Let’s go,” and stepped through the gap in the worm’s teeth, carrying Cobra. Robin and Jakar followed.
Gath proceeded into the digestive tract of the worm, spewing flames around its gummy interior, and it flinched and convulsed, opening the passage wider. The others followed rapidly, scrambling and dodging in an effort to avoid the sting of digestive fluids, and choking on their putrid gases.
Every time the walls of the worm’s interior convulsed against Robin, a glittering diamond would appear on her flesh emitting beams of white light which burnt and repelled the offending flesh.
Near the middle of the worm, the tract began to narrow, and Gath had to crouch low, pushing and shoving, as well as burning away protruding glands and growths. Suddenly the helmet sensed a threat up ahead, and he charged forward, shouldering the meat aside.
Just short of the end of the tract, the savage nymph goddess was on her hands and knees hacking an opening in the side of the worm with her knife. Flashes of guttering torchlight were slipping through the cut she had already made, and splashing across her slick body.
Gath’s legs churned forward, the horns of his helmet chewing up the narrowing sides of the tract, his knees banging it aside.
Tiyy glanced over a shoulder, her large, sloped eyes bright with reckless daring, then dove into the cut up to her hips and came to a stop. Stuck. She wiggled and squirmed violently, and began to slip through.
Gath dove for a kicking ankle, and it vanished through the cut. Growling, he jumped up, holding the roof of the tract away with his back, and pulling apart the sides of the small hole Tiyy had made. He turned the eye slits on the sides of the hole, and flame erupted, burning the hole wider and wider and weakening the surrounding flesh. Then he ripped the hole wide enough to serve as a second mouth, and held it open.
When the others reached him, Jakar took Gath’s place, and the Barbarian dove through the hole, leading the way. The hole opened on the vertical staircase, and he dashed down it with the others following.
As they descended, the rumblings within the surrounding rock walls grew loud and threatening, and the stairs shuddered under them, shaking loose clouds of rock and dust. Reaching the bottom of the vertical shaft, Gath plunged through the short side passage into a main cross tunnel. It was still lit by torches, and there were sounds of running feet from the interior opening.
“To the right,” the bukko shouted.
Gath did not need to be told. He was already headed that way, following the helmet’s instincts.
He burst out of the tunnel onto the ledge siding the tide pool, and saw Tiyy perched on the edge. She was naked now except for the sheathed dagger on her forearm, and glistened with slime and blood. She dove like a flying arrow out over the swirling pool, arched at the center and plunged down into the frothing ocean water.
Gath dove in after her, touched bottom and saw her slicing through the greenish waters into the dark sinister hole in the white floor. He swam for the hole, and black light shot up out of it. It spread quickly, filling the pool with an inky darkness, and his hands groped blindly before taking hold of the edge of the hole. He could see nothing. The black light had subdued the helmet’s powers: its glow had gone out, and it could no longer sense anything. His mind and body heaved with frustration, but it was Gath of Baal’s frustration, not the helmet’s. He bunched his legs under him and thrust himself toward the surface.
Erupting from the center of the tide pool, he gasped for air and saw Jakar standing knee-deep in sea water at the tunnel leading to the ocean. He was waving and shouting for Gath to come that way, but the sounds of the swirling water and roar of the surf echoing through the tunnel covered his words. Gath swam for the tunnel, and Jakar vanished into it.
Reaching the tunnel, Gath climbed into it, and a wave tried to drive him back. He stood with his legs set apart and body low, and the weight of the wave battered thighs and chest. Then its force was spent, and the incoming water lowered, allowing him to wade through it.
He found the others waiting on a wooden dock twenty feet down the tunnel, where it widened into a huge cavern that reached through the base of the mountain for a hundred feet then opened onto the Inland Sea. There a dark fog lay just above the white-capped blue-black water. The sounds of frightened gulls were shrill, and the crashing waves were loud as they spilled into the cave. Rocks broke away from the rim of the mouth and crashed into the churning sea. The cave itself shook and rumbled, and dust swirled from the roof, clouding the air.
Through the haze, Gath could see that the dock ran the length of the cave to its mouth, where it joined a pier which reached out another three hundred feet into the dark sea waters. A blood-red barge bobbed up and down just inside the mouth. A dozen bat soldiers were loading it h
urriedly, while others were untying it from the dock. Twenty feet this side of the barge, more bat soldiers lay half buried under a rubble of rock. It had spilled out of the mouth of a tunnel opening off of the dock, and dust and more rubble were now joining it.
Gath turned to the bukko and hesitated. The old man still held Cobra. She was barely breathing now. Her face was chalky against his blood-stained tunic. Gath looked into Brown John’s eyes. There was no humor or reckless plots behind them now, only pain and panic.
“The nymph got away,” Gath said, because there was nothing else to say, and charged down the dock toward the barge. After two strides the helmet was roaring and spewing flames.
When the bat soldiers saw him coming, there was no doubt in their minds that the flaming demon spawn, their sacred queen’s newest Lord of Destruction, wanted the barge exclusively for himself. So they jumped into the water and swam for the Inland Sea. Those who were not certain that the only thing he wanted was the barge did so very swiftly.
When Brown John and the others boarded the barge, Gath manned both the port and starboard oars as Jakar took the rudder, and the craft pulled away slowly from the dock. The bukko huddled with Cobra on the raised command deck at the center of the ship, and Robin searched hurriedly through the baskets of provisions and stores of arms and armor loaded by the bat soldiers, hunting for a knife and firepot so she could remove the crossbow bolts from Cobra’s flesh and close her wounds.
A flurry of small rocks and spilling dirt fell on the barge as it passed under the rim of the cave mouth, then the lumbering craft floated clear, and the massive, hunched rock supporting Pyram growled in complaint at their departure.
Gath took no notice, his huge body bending and pulling on the oars. Cording. Glistening.
The barge plowed into the incoming surf, riding over wave after wave, then broke free and headed out to sea under the concealing roof of fog.
Forty-four
TWADDLE
The blood-red barge was halfway across the Inland Sea when the fog began to burn off, and the huge grey rock supporting Pyram appeared behind the thinning mists. It was rumbling and shaking, and the vibrations churned up the surface of the sea, causing the awkward craft to dip and bob. Then the black castle shuddered at the heights of the rock, and its three central towers began to sway.
On the command deck of the barge, Brown John held Cobra’s unconscious body close as he looked back at the impending spectacle. Robin had removed the crossbow bolts from the woman’s body and closed the wounds in hip and thigh with fire. But the wound in her chest could not be closed and continued to bleed.
Robin, shamed and frightened by this failure, now squatted beside the bukko, her big eyes also on the shuddering castle. Her arms were stained with blood and ash up to her elbows.
Gath stood motionless beside the banked oars on the aft deck, and Jakar stood beside him, holding the rudder steady, as they also watched.
The castle’s black towers weaved, then suddenly collapsed inward, and clouds of dust erupted under them. The walls of the castle shook and also fell inward, sucked down by the towers, and vanished behind billowing banks of grey dust that rose toward the overhanging cloud.
Pyram was dead.
Brown John nodded with approval, but it was imperceptible. In less than a month, the Master of Darkness had been driven back into the underworld and silenced, and now the source of his demon spawn was destroyed, and the sacred jewels of White Veshta, which had provided the magical powers to create his demons, had been taken from the dark sorceress. But the bukko felt no joy.
Despite his and Robin’s efforts, Cobra had not revived and he could feel her growing cold in his arms.
He held her close, warming her with his own heat, until the barge ran ashore on the southern coast of the Inland Sea. There he carried her to the edge of a forest with trees taller than any he had ever seen before, and laid her in the shade at the foot of one. Its bark was soft and red, and its needles were thick on the ground.
While Gath and Jakar unloaded the weapons, armor, clothing and provisions, the bukko and Robin made a bed of needles and laid Cobra on it, covering her with blankets. Robin raced into the forest, with Jakar following to guard her, and moments later returned with herb leaves clutched in her hands, and a full waterskin slung over Jakar’s shoulder. They sat beside Cobra, and Robin slowly fed her sips of water, then bits of herbs, first chewing them slightly to soften and moisten them.
Brown John watched the girl do this for a long time, his brown eyes heavy, no longer wearing a trace of vitality or optimism. He felt Cobra stir, and a smile lifted his cheeks. Robin shared a hopeful glance with the bukko, fed Cobra some more herbs, and she stirred again, opening her eyes. They blinked with a vague expression, then hardened with fear.
“It’s all right,” Brown John reassured her. “We’re safe. Pyram is destroyed… and Robin wears the jewels.”
Cobra glanced at Robin, and the girl pushed back the collar of her wrap, her fingers lightly touching her neck. A glow rose from her nut-brown flesh, and sparkling diamonds briefly appeared around her slender throat, then faded back into her body.
A smile flickered at the corners of Cobra’s mouth, and she whispered, “I… I had no idea. I only thought you might be able to hold them.” Panic suddenly creased her face, and she turned to Brown John, her voice cold with fear. “Gath? Where’s Gath?”
“He’s here,” Brown John said comfortingly. “He’s all right now. He’s himself again, and he controls the helmet.”
She smiled buoyantly, gasping with relief, and tears formed in her eyes. “Show me,” she begged. “Hold me up.”
Brown John lifted her slightly, and the tears fell from her eyes, streamed over her swelling cheeks.
Gath stood twenty paces off amidst the loot taken from the barge. He had found and put on a ragged leather tunic, a belted sword and a pouch and dagger belt. The homed helmet was tied to his hip, and he was sorting among a collection of spears. Sensing their eyes on him, he looked up. Seeing Cobra awake, he straightened and a smile moved his burnt cheeks. He selected a spear, dropped the others and moved toward his comrades.
Reaching them, he stopped, facing Cobra, and she asked, “You’re… you’re free? Truly free?”
He nodded, and she sank back against Brown John whispering, her voice too weak to make her words intelligible, but her tone overflowing with euphoric joy.
Gath asked her, “What would you like to eat? Venison? Rabbit? Turkey?”
She smiled up at him, and her purr came back into her voice, stroking him. “I’ll eat whatever you kill, Dark One.”
He nodded and started off, then stopped and looked back at her. His slate-grey eyes clouded as a confusion of emotions passed behind them. Memories. Suspicions and sensual pleasure. Deceit. Violence. Hate. Then trust and gratitude filled them unlike any the bukko had seen there before. Sober with regret and guilt. A moment passed before he could speak, and when he did, the words did not come easily to his lips. Nevertheless, they came.
“Forgive me,” he said. “You are a true and honorable and brave friend. I owe you my life.”
Then he turned and strode into the forest.
Cobra watched the shadowed foliage where he had disappeared until she had no more tears of joy to cry. Then she laid her head back, with her cheek against Brown John’s palm, and closed her eyes. Some time passed before she spoke.
“Brown,” she asked timidly, “can… can you forgive me? For all the lies?”
“Of course,” he assured her. “It was my fault. I knew you loved him. It was foolish of me to think you might have, you know, changed your mind. I’m old enough, I should have known better.”
Her eyes opened and said, “I’m glad you didn’t.” She shuddered with a chill and sank back against him, her eyes closing again as she whispered, “Hold me, Brown. Hold me.”
“I’m right here,” he said, pressing her close. For a long moment he sat stroking her burnt hair and cheek, then he continue
d, “You knew from the beginning, didn’t you? About Robin?”
She nodded. “I saw how strong her Kaa was when she was a prisoner of the Kitzakks.”
Brown John, Robin and Jakar shared a thoughtful glance, and the bukko asked, “And you planned everything, didn’t you? You knew just what you were doing every step of the trail. You knew the way to Pyram all the time, but you wanted the map so you could copy the signs on Robin.”
“No,” she whispered emphatically, and looked up into his eyes. “I knew the way, and I knew the legend said that the signs were somehow involved, but I didn’t know how. I… I was just hoping that somehow things would work out. It was crazy of me. Stupid and reckless. And I would have given up a dozen times, but you wouldn’t let me.” She smiled warmly. “It wasn’t me, Brown. It was you. You were my bukko. You picked the stage, and you set the plot, not me. And with your flattering eyes and magical twaddle you compelled all of us to play it as it deserved to be played.” Her voice weakened, and her whisper barely had breath. “No, Brown… it was you.”
She reached to touch his cheek, and her arm lost strength, dropped lifelessly beside her.
Robin moaned, hiding her face against Jakar’s chest, and he held her as she heaved with sobs.
The bukko closed Cobra’s eyes, then kissed her softly on her lips, lingering there.
She was still in his arms when Gath returned carrying a dead buck over his shoulders. It was dusk, and Robin and Jakar had found clothing and weapons, and built a fire in the open beside the tree. They stood beside it now, silent, watching Gath. He noted the firelight glistening on Robin’s tear-stained cheeks, then set the buck beside the fire and joined Brown John. He did not speak until the bukko looked up.
“I will dig her grave,” he said. “You will tell me where.”
The bukko nodded in reply.