“This is the back east quarter of the temple,” Valerius said. “The priestess’ chamber is north of the Mysteries. If we are to find her, it will be there. She might be guarded. If we can cut off the head, a creature dies. Her evil will die with her.”
“Even if we can kill Shalisha, her evil might endure,” Kira cautioned. “It may be necessary to cleanse the temple by fire.”
“Whatever it takes,” Valerius said grimly.
They exited the storeroom, passing through a dim corridor. They traversed intricate passageways. Kira was reminded of the Great Temple at Knossos and the amazing complex built near Amenemhet III’s pyramid at Hawara in Khemet. She stopped at a sound ahead and pulled Valerius into a shadowed alcove.
Four soldiers walked by without glancing at the intruders. Their boots’ iron nails clicked harshly against the marble floor. The sound faded to silence and Kira emerged from shadows. Another sound came to her, a kind of whimpered sigh, and Kira followed it, Valerius close behind.
A short flight of steps curved into a lower level. Behind a door a single torch lit a rectangular chamber with rough-hewn walls. A woman sat against one wall, her arms secured to the wall by manacles and chains. Valerius rushed to her side.
“Priestess!” He lowered his tone reverently. “I thought you died with the others.”
The woman looked up. Her skin was alabaster and her black hair cascaded in thick curls. “Valerius?”
“The Lady spared me from death and gave me a champion to purge Shalisha and her deeds form the temple.”
“It’s too late,” the captive moaned. “The temple bleeds. The altars are desecrated. No one can undo what has been done. The end has come.”
Kira kneeled by the priestess and used her dagger to pry open the manacles. “When the last breath is exhaled, then it is too late. I still breathe. My name is Kira.”
The priestess looked Kira over with glimmering eyes. “I am Ariadne, once Priestess of the Moon Temple in Abastis.”
“You still are,” Valerius insisted. “When Shalisha and her devils are dead, you can reconsecrate and rebuild.”
Ariadne stood shakily, the hint of a smile playing over her lips. “Valerius, our good servant. You speak with the foolish optimism of a man.” She looked to Kira. “You don’t look the type to embroil yourself in hopeless battles. Leave and take Valerius to a safe place. He has served the Goddess well and does not deserve to die.”
“Come with us,” Kira said. “We can go southward beyond the Styx and you can found a new temple.”
Ariadne shook her head. “If I escape, Shalisha will know of it. She will pursue us. She will not stop till she catches us, kills us and drinks our blood from moon-bowls. Go now.”
“You’re right, Ariadne,” Kira said. “I’m not the type to fight hopeless battles. It isn’t hopeless. Not yet.”
“This isn’t the…”
Kira signaled for silence and pulled Valerius into shadow.
Ariadne resumed her place against the wall.
Four iron-clad and iron-armed soldiers entered the cell. Two approached Ariadne, not noticing she was unfettered. She caught her foot behind the nearest man’s knee and sent him sprawling. By the time his companion gathered his wits, Ariadne had vaulted to her feet and grabbed him by his throat, pressing in just the right place to produce sudden death. The others did not have the opportunity to bare their blades before all but one killed silently and efficiently by Kira.
Valerius looked at the dead men, then at Ariadne. “Still feel it’s a fool’s fight, Priestess?”
“Yes,” she replied. “We are all fools.”
Kira kneeled beside the guard who yet breathed. His eyes flickered open. She pressed the tip of her bronze dagger to his throat. He started to struggle but ceased when the tip drew a thin scarlet trickle.
“Don’t kill me, lady,” he whispered. “Please spare me.”
Valerius kneeled closed and exposed the dire wound around his neck. “Remember me, Diomides?”
The man’s face paled to an ashen grey. “I saw you die.”
“He was with those who first despoiled, then slaughtered the temple virgins,” Valerius explained, his words coming through clenched teeth. “And he captained the detail that hanged me at the crossroads.”
“Where is the imposter priestess?” Kira demanded.
“You’re going to kill me,” Diomides whimpered.
“Tell me!” Kira snapped, pressing the blade.
“In the gallery,” the man gasped. “Making sacrifices to the dark of the moon.”
“Venting her bloodlust,” Valerius said grimly. “Was that why you came for the Priestess?”
Diomides nodded, and Kira eased the pressure of her dagger from his throat.
“Others will come after these four.” Ariadne reached down and pulled an iron sword from its scabbard. “If Shalisha wants blood, then it’s blood she should have.”
Kira intended to knock the cowardly Diomides unconscious. Before she could follow through, Valerius brought his elbow down, striking just the right place atop his heart, a killing-way known only to initiates of the Moon Temple. She looked to Valerius and saw a face carved from passionless stone.
Screams and dire wails came to them, echoing off walls and columns until it seemed they were surrounded by the damned souls at the inner ring of Hades. Mixed with the sounds of torment were cries of exultation, and voices raised in song, singing hymns of darkness and blood. Though the words of the hymns were familiar to Kira, praises to Hecate, she had never heard them sung with such ardor and enthusiasm.
As they entered the long gallery by a secret passage, Kira motioned for her companions to stay down.
“Sacrilege,” Ariadne hissed through clenched teeth. “She does openly what the Goddess commands be hid by darkness.”
The dark moon gleamed into the temple through an opening in the roof, dim through the alchemical cloud over Abastis. A huge triple-visaged statue dominated the far end of the gallery, flanked by rows of torches.
The raised platforms before the statue were for offerings of food and wine, incense and spices, candles lit for the dead and prayer scrolls burned. These had been replaced by the altar stone kept in the inner chamber behind the statue, where the darker aspect of the goddess was to be propitiated in solemn darkness and with hymns of renewal and rebirth.
The altar was dark with flowing blood, and bodies were pushed to the side. Waiting victims struggled against iron bonds and the iron grips of the new soldiers of the temple. Watching the sanguine spectacle were crowds of men and women garbed in finery, eating and drinking, laughing and profanely singing songs that should have been sacred.
A woman stood behind the altar, smiling, her eyes wide with madness, her white robes splattered scarlet, her pale arms dripping blood. In one hand she held the silver dagger of her office, in the other a still-beating heart. A young girl not older than twelve writhed on the altar though she was already dead.
The mad priestess tossed the heart to the richly dressed spectators and pushed the victim’s body from the altar. She commanded another sacrifice be brought forward, this time a boy younger than the last.
Valerius leaped form hiding. Two fat citizens tried to stop him, their laughter making it apparent they thought him nothing more than an extension of the evening’s entertainment. They fell dead and the crowd panicked.
Kira threw her daggers. One struck the soldier dragging the sacrifice in his neck. The other dagger was deflected by a soldier’s iron cuirass, and buried itself in his throat. Kira drew her bronze sword, knowing that it was no match against iron weaponry. She dodged and feinted, striking at the jointings of their armor at every opportunity.
Ariadne had a better time of it, iron against iron, but she lacked the skill a lifetime of wandering had instilled in Kira. What she lacked in experience, however, was more than compensated by the frenzy that seized her. Kira had often seen such battle-rages among the warriors of the northern tribes who were sometimes cal
led berserkers.
Valerius fought using the killing-ways he had learned as an initiate of the Temple. He, too, was possessed by the rage of the moment. It seemed iron crumpled beneath his blows, but it might have been a trick of the wavering torch lights.
Kira and the others were assisted in their attack by the citizens that had gathered to watch the bloody spectacle. They panicked, running every which way, some even accidentally impaling themselves on swords in their haste.
Both Ariadne and Valerius closed in on the altar and the renegade priestess Shalisha. Soldiers deserted her and would-be victims escaped in the melee. Ariadne raised her sword but Shalisha ducked under and slashed across the true priestess’ arm. Her iron sword clattered away. She stumbled against the altar, sprawling.
Kira struggled to reach Ariadne but knew she would not reach her in time.
Valerius came from nowhere, vaulting over the altar in a leap that belied his years and his near death at the crossroads. His full weight hit Shalisha, throwing her back. Her dagger fell by Ariadne.
Shalish stood suddenly still, an expression of surprise and fear etched on her face. The moon-dagger protruded from her breast, Ariadne’s hand gripping the hilt. The false priestess crumpled to the floor.
The few soldiers remaining fled as their leader died.
Kira joined Ariadne and helped her up.
The temple was empty except for the dead and dying.
Kira kneeled and pulled at the usurper’s thick black hair. The wig resisted a moment, then pulled away, revealing the truth about the person who had profaned the Goddess’ temple.
“A man,” Ariadne murmured. She felt at the body. “Or something that had once been a man.”
“The temple is yours again,” Kira said.
“It’s better off burned to the ground.” She looked around.
“Where’s Valerius?”
They found him beside the statue, where he had fallen after preventing Shalisha from killing Ariadne. He did not move. He did not breathe. Kira examined him and sighed. His body was cold. He was several hours’ dead, neck broken by the noose of a thick hemp rope,
Kira looked upward, at the dark moon visible through the temple’s roof opening.
The moon was a cruel mistress indeed.
One truism often cited is ‘people change.’ Personally, I’ve never noticed that to be true. I agree with Hercule Poirot, who said, “The trouble, mon ami, is that people do not change.” Children who pull wings off flies or drown kittens grow into brutal thugs, serial killers or human resource managers. It is, perhaps, a cynical view, but one seemingly confirmed on every nightly newscast. Such a viewpoint might also be a survival trait for those of us who are not cruel or unkind by nature. Extending that idea to encompass the world, we might aver “Continents may shift, mountains may rise or fall, but human nature never changes, so be careful where you sleep.”
Beneath the Dark, Red Sun
A Tale of Cemetery Earth
A dark palisade hugging the land’s contours made the village of Bylan seem like a fat venomous snake basking between dusty road and torpid coppery lake. Jason dismissed the image as a trick of distance, but the impression became even more vivid as he quit the snowy mountains for the scrubbed foothills and the green expanse of the valley.
It was dusk now, the hours-long purple twilight before the advent of real night, seventy hours of darkness. Reluctant to enter a place that so reminded him of a serpent lying in wait by the trail, he consulted his maps. He searched for another passage out of the valley, another direction in which to some haven that did not require him to pass the night in an ophidian’s belly.
All maps showed this settlement as the only one within reach, but only two depicted the lake. The dusty roadway existed as everything from a caravan trail to a gleaming mag-way leading to a distant starport, to ruins, to oblivion. None showed what terrors this land held. As usual, the maps were of dubious help, for even the continents had shifted positions since they had been copied and recopied, but he could not bring himself to abandon them. He carefully refolded the parchments and stowed them in his pack.
The choice was to enter the village and spend the night there or pass it by in favor of camping in the open and facing unknown dangers. He usually shunned his fellow humans, but even he could only spend so much time alone. Sometimes he needed the companionship of beings somewhat like himself.
At least the village would have an inn where he could quaff dark ale and try to sleep between clean sheets. True, it would never offer the same hospitality had found in The Shattered Bishop at the juncture of the Northam Desert and the Western Sea, but he would find something. He should have stayed there, he knew, but he could no more stop wandering than he could stop breathing. Still, in whatever inn he found there would be stories spun by men who could not sleep, waiting for the feeble dawn.
And perhaps the people, he hoped, had seen a woman more beautiful than any daughter of Earth, with hair like spun starlight.
The trek down the scrubby foothills took longer than Jason had anticipated. By the time he reached the gaping maw of the village and read the name of Bylan carved above it, the huge sun was mostly consumed by horizon. The frosty stars which had shone pale through the long day now brightened. The ruby streamers of the setting sun wove among them in the gathering dusk.
The Moonbow, relic of shattered Luna, caught the dying sun’s light and glowed a dull red. Its bloody image was reflected in the sullen surface of the lake beyond the village’s palisade.
The roadway was marked with the passage of wheeled vehicles and beasts still friendly to man, always a good sign of civilization yet enduring. Less cheering, however, were spoor of beasts inimical to humanity, indicators of mankind under siege. The spoor-signs, seemed to cluster about the gateway and where the palisade dipped low due to the lay of the land. They convinced Jason to stop rather than move on.
Jason did not look at the brightening stars as he approached the village. No one ever did. Those far lights were where the sons and daughters of Earth had fled in the eventide of prehistory. Few returned from the stars, and none went there anymore. To the universe, Earth was dead, and the men and women who remained were as carrion beetles scurrying over a corpse. Perhaps Earth had once been the cradle of humanity (or so the old legends ran), but now it was just a mortuary world orbiting a red sun weak as a ember and unable to stave off starlight even at noon.
The gate was guarded by men in armor carved from stone. On the depleted Earth, metal was too scarce to use except for the most necessary of objects. It was as precious as plastic, and scavenged for just as eagerly. The guards did not challenge Jason as he entered, but regarded him with narrowed eyes. A solitary journeyer was always suspect in an era when people either cowered behind strong walls or traveled in heavily armed bands.
The villagers would watch him carefully, as he would them.
Jason half expected the illusion of the village’s serpent shape to vanish as he neared and entered the gate, but it intensified. He felt as he if had stepped into a snake’s belly. But even the gullet of a serpent was preferable to the creatures that prowled the countryside after the fall of the long night.
In many ways, the village was like any of a hundred that Jason had visited in his travels. The sights, smells and sounds of village life assaulted his senses—children crying, people shouting, food cooking, a smith banging a piece of found duraluminum, a cooper working staves, bleating lambs and barking dogs, merchants hawking their wares, astrologers and wiccans swindling the gullible and desperate, magicians and scientists invoking ancient gods, the reek of waste. The familiarity of everything should have cooled his nerves. Instead, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising. The fact that he could perceive nothing that would account for his increased wariness only served to heighten his alertness.
The village inn was not difficult to find. As with most caravan towns it was the hub of social life and the center of mercantile transactions. There were almost as m
any people larking about outside as there were inside, and Jason felt a good many of them were watching him closely. Above its arched doorway was the sign of the were-jaguar.
He pushed through the swinging batwing doors. The interior was dark, ill lit by smoldering torches and crystal windows set high in the walls. The air was misty with blue smoke from pipes. At the opposite end of the common room was a curtained alcove, from which drifted music, whining flutes and discordant strings. Jason wondered why the musicians went unseen, but did not inquire. As Jason entered, conversation subsided and watery gazes swung to take his measure, lingering over his sword and the ancient revolvers strapped to his hips. He met each scrutinizing eye with his own frost-hard glare, forcing each man back to his own concerns.
Jason strode to the hardwood bar. The man behind the bar fixed his one good eye on Jason without apparent curiosity. His other eye (or perhaps only a socket) was covered by a patch of polished stone, held in place by tiny nails.
“Your drink?”
“Ale,” Jason answered. “Dark and bitter.”
The barkeep rapped the countertop with scarred knuckles.
Jason reached into his belt-purse, then thunked a copper down. The barkeep rubbed it between thumb and forefinger, examined the image of the god-scientist, and dropped it into his own pocket. He set a thin-walled stone mug before Jason.
Jason Sipped the ale (very dark and very bitter) and examined the meanness of his surroundings.
“Where’re you from, stranger?”
Jason narrowed his gaze.
“It’s just that we don’t get many travellers solitary like,” the man continued. “Most either come with the caravans or are part of a riding clan.”
“Come from the other side of the mountains,” Jason answered. “Before that, other places.”
“Merchant maybe?”
Jason shook his head.
The barkeep looked at his weapons. “You a craftsman? You make those? People’d pay plenty if you did. They for trade?”
Beneath Strange Stars: A Collection of Tales Page 34