by Jack Lovejoy
“Eight years!” The old warrior literally staggered, and again proudly shoved away all helping hands. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Cajhet, sir.”
“You’re too sly by half, Cajhet.”
“Yes, sir.”
The scout Severakh had sent to reconnoiter came flying down the staircase. “Marauders and bandits, sir,” he reported. “Looks like they’ve rallied the whole gang of looters, from inside the fortress and out, right at the top of these stairs. They’ll be attacking down here any minute now. Although the first company to form was marched off in the opposite direction. Must be going down to the armory for weapons.”
“What about it, Cajhet? You seem to know your way around down here. Can these dungeons be reached directly from the armory?”
“Only by a long way around, sir.” Cajhet cringed each time the old warrior glowered at him. “Three trips I made lugging bundles of weapons, and my back still aches from it. The lad here helped some too,” he added generously.
“Weapons? You idiot, why didn’t you tell me at once?”
Severakh looked faint for a moment, but forced himself erect by an effort of will. “Now where did you stash them?”
Cajhet was overjoyed to lead the soldiers to the hiding place; then he hid himself from Severakh. Every able-bodied soldier—less than half the total—was soon armed, with a few weapons to spare.
“Here, lad.” Severakh beckoned to Branwe. “A fair exhibition you gave us with that little drill sword you’ve got there. But here’s a true weapon for you. The sword of a true warrior.”
“Thank you, sir.”
It was the proudest moment of Branwe’s young life, and he glanced self-consciously toward Srana. But she was, busy cleansing and bandaging wounds, and did not notice. His disappointment was too evident to miss, and Severakh glanced shrewdly from one to the other, and his eyes narrowed with amusement. Those shrewd old eyes, in fact, missed nothing around him. His captains knew this, and formed ranks as if they were on the drill field; those mrem unable to walk were carried. Meanwhile everything portable was heaped into a barricade across the staircase.
“There’s a lantern, and there’s another.” Severakh pointed.
“Light them, then dump this table lamp onto the barricade. Now where’s that Cajhet?”
“Sir?”
“ Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“No, sir.”
“You got in here somehow. Can you get us out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do it!”
Still too proud to accept help, though Srana watched his every painful step with concern, the old warrior marched right along with his troops, up one level and down the next, through the vast artificial caverns. Gritting his teeth, he managed to pull himself, rung by rung, to the top of the old pump-well; though some younger mrem had to be carried.
“What is this place, some kind of warehouse? Is every mrem up? Then nail down that trapdoor. They won’t be following us this way.” He sneezed. In fact, everybody was now sneezing.”Now where did that Cajhet go this time?”
“Here, sir.”
“I thought I told you not to sneak up on me like that.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Cajhet sneezed, then grinned apologetically.
“I suspect you know everything here worth taking. They’ll expect us to head straight for the Whitestone ford, so we’re going to head south instead. Commissariat will be our biggest problem. We’ll have to load all we can carry into packs, before going over the walls. Show my captains the most portable foodstuffs.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The rest of you gather around, and try to stop sneezing for a few minutes. That’s all the time we’ve got. If we can get over the walls unseen, we’ll have a good chance to beat them at their own game. I’ve hunted bandits all my life. I know the country, and I know their tricks better than they do. We’re going to have to live like bandits ourselves. But never forget that you’re soldiers. This is war, and we’ll be doing our part the best we can. We have no choice, and no means of reaching the safety of Ar, or even telling them we’re still alive. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.” The response was weak and dispirited.
“May I have a word with you?” said Srana, and she and Severakh drew out of earshot. “We may be able to communicate with Ar, but only if I recover something I hid before I was captured. Branwe has agreed to accompany me. Our only danger will be in reaching the hiding place. Afterward, we should be safe from attack. You needn’t send any of your mrem. This risk will be ours alone.”
Severakh nodded. He knew she was the granddaughter of a wizard, and suspected that magic of a darker kind had somehow conspired the overthrow of the city. There were forces at work here that he did not understand. Nor did he doubt that young Branwe was ready to accompany this lovely young she-mrem anywhere. Severakh beckoned to him.
“Do you know where the spur of the Kazerclawm narrows into Stonejar Valley, then bends back on itself like a fishhook? That’s where we’ll be holed up until nightfall. The All-Mother knows where we’ll be after that, so don’t dawdle. All right, mrem, pick up those stretchers, and not a peep out of any of you, or I’ll know the reason why.”
Still weak from loss of blood and painfully hobbled by wounds, the old warrior was nonetheless determined to set an example for his dispirited troops. After providing support for the wounded, inspecting his commissariat, and posting scouts, he led the way grimly out into the streets. The route he had chosen to the city wall seemed deserted.
Left alone, Branwe and Srana turned back toward the very heart of the city. Their route was anything but deserted. The streets they crept through were a charnel house of wanton butchery and horror; terrorism that warned all the cities of the land what lay in store for those which refused to throw open their gates to the Eastern Lords. And yet, to Branwe’s dismay, they passed unnoticed. Though naturally inclined to duck for cover at the sight of roving thugs or scavengers, he found that these were invariably looking the other way. By the third time it happened he began to suspect that it was no coincidence.
He also suspected that Srana’s concealment magic—there could be no other reason for their not being noticed—like his own swordsmanship, still lacked full technique. She could cause one, two, even small groups of thugs mysteriously to turn their heads, and not look at them as they passed. But whenever she spotted larger bands of thugs or marauders—too large for her limited powers to encompass—she prudently led the way down some detour street or alley. Branwe followed, ready to defend her with his life, should those powers ever fail. The sword old Severakh had given him was too magnificent for his homemade scabbard, so he carried it in his hand.
Then, through the acrid gloom of smoke and slaughter, they made out a lone figure skulking toward them, but this time Srana chose not to conceal them with magic. For she had seen this very figure lurking outside her grandfather’s house when it was in flames, and again after she was captured. A wizard? One of Khal’s agents? He might be able to resist concealment magic, or at least recognize its effects, and she drew Branwe into the ruins of a looted chandler’s shop.
They did not emerge until the lone figure, skulking in the direction of the Sacred Gate, was nearly out of sight. Soon, to Branwe’s amazement, they themselves appeared to vanish. In fact, from the moment Srana emerged from inside a certain pottery shop, nobody so much as glanced at them all the way to the city wall, even while they mounted the guard walk to the top.
The devastation of Kazarclawm was appalling. A valley breeze now wafted upward into the mountains, but seemed only to fan the smoldering fires, rather than carry away the smoke. How would the young king of Ar respond to such an outrage? This was no mere bandits’ raid. The land was at war, the very survival of the mrem in jeopardy.
“We’re going to have to live like bandits ourselves,” said Branwe,
when they had at last found one of the invader’s scaling ladders propped against the outer wall. “The lands to the south are cruel and dangerous, but, well, you know I’d give, that is, you can rely on me to do everything in my power ...” he ended shyly.
This time he was not disappointed. She did not reply, but there was a look of trust and gratitude in her eyes; a look for which any true warrior would dauntlessly battle to the death. And together they descended into the gloom below.
•
Maglakh’s feelings, as he slunk through the Sacred Gate, now unguarded, and began to ascend the mountain path, were a confusion of dread and delight. For though his poisoned soul still reveled in the scenes of horror through which he had just passed, he cringed before the personal horrors that might lay ahead. He had never actually seen Khal—no wizard of his generation could have—but had heard that the liskash sorcerer most resembled the Eastern Lords, although still more hideous and repulsive.
A stout wooden door studded with nails hung ajar; his pupils dilating, he stepped inside. The abandoned mine shaft had been crudely delved from the living rock by some prehistoric race. There was a greenish light in the distance, and from somewhere around the bend to the right, the echoes weirdly amplified, he heard groans, then whimpers of abject terror. Dark laughter seemed to reverberate out of the very heart of the mountain, so evil and reptilian that his fur stood on end.
But there was no turning back, no escape from Khal’s vengeance any more, except by somehow appeasing it. Why was Khal still here in the mountain? Did he know yet that thousands of captives had successfully fled the conquered city? Maglakh approached the bend on tiptoe. The greenish light seemed to be coming from just ahead. Each burst of abject groans and whimpers was followed by evil laughter.
Maglakh’s fur had begun to relent, but rose again as he peeked around the bend. Khal’s alienness was beyond imagination; his iridescent robe, the array of shining rings too near the tips of his webbed fingers, only exaggerated it. He seemed indeed to have a third eye, glittering evilly between his own pair from a golden uraeus.
Nizzam groveled before Khal, his eyes bloodshot, his face writhing with horror. But it was not Khal himself he seemed to dread, though the reptilian sorcerer hovered only a few feet away, in the greenish light of a globe floating mysteriously in the air. Several minutes passed before Maglakh, baffled and appalled, at last understood what was happening.
Like some monstrous hybrid of ancient evil and childish self-indulgence, the sadistic torment of the weak, groveling fool seemed to absorb Khal more than the fall of cities. He knew exactly what so terrified the wretched Nizzam, for he was creating it, controlling it for his own delight....
Had the terror no end? Over and over again Nizzam was deceived by appearances. First, the lovely Srana had led him shamelessly to a couch, but no sooner had he embraced her than he found himself embraced in turn by writhing tentacles. His bones were crushed, his flesh stripped away piece by piece, in an agony such as he had never known before....
He must have swooned. He was not sure what had happened, only that he was still alive. When the pain and horror reached their utmost, when he knew he could endure no more, his mind whirled, and he found himself in a strange forest. Then in dark groping caverns. Then floating on a twilight sea. Childhood friends, his mother, his old master, recovered from his illness, came to lead him to safety. But each time he somehow ended up in torment.
Now he found himself in his childhood room; all his books and toys were just as he had left them, only there were no windows. Instead, each of the four walls had a door. He opened the first, and reeled backward in horror. Here was not the familiar landing, the carpeted staircase that led down to the comfortable old parlor, but a moonlit plain over which loped primitive mrem, like the prehistoric beings that had conquered the land from the Old Race. But these were clearly insane; their jaws slavered, their fanglike teeth chattered with rage, and there was madness in their eyes. They seemed to be waiting for him, as if they knew he must soon come out to them. He slammed the door, and rushed frantically to the next.
But each of the doors led to horrors grimmer than the last, more diabolical and cruel. Slamming the last of the four doors, Nizzam lay down to sleep on his familiar old bed. Here was his old refuge from neighborhood bullies; here was one place he would be safe.
He sensed rather than heard the dark laughter, and opened his eyes. The room was smaller now, the doors leading into various horrid landscapes closer than they had been. He began to tremble with fright as he realized that the doors were slowly moving inward toward him. That was what the creatures outside had been waiting for. That was why they knew he must soon come out to them....
Then suddenly he found himself back in the prehistoric mineshaft, standing in the sickly greenish light of some mysterious globe that floated above him in the air. Khal stood only a few feet away, in the mouth of the cavern; but he now ignored Nizzam, diverted from play by more pressing interests. However, it was not Khal himself Nizzam now heard speaking:
“ ... He would have died but for me,” exclaimed Maglakh.
“The commander of the garrison, who organized the escape which your own commanders were unable to check, the leader of the rear guard which beat back pursuit.” He did not mention the terrible cost in lives, which he doubted would interest Khal in any case. “Severakh himself. The she-mrem used concealment magic, but I was not fooled. I had her put in the old warrior’s cell, or he would have bled to death, and escaped your just vengeance.”
“This kit is the granddaughter of the Sentinel, you say?”
Khal spoke in a raspy hiss.
“A White Dancer, lord,” said Maglakh.
“Ah, and is that in fact her true color?”
Maglakh was taken unawares, without the least idea why the sorcerer should be so interested in fur color. Nizzam was quicker to respond, so frazzled were his nerves that he instinctively sought a means to ingratiate himself with his tormentor.
“A flawless cream white, lord,” he blurted out, not knowing either why Khal was so interested in fur color, only that he was. “I know this well, for I intend to honor her with marriage one day.”
“And yet you betray her to me now.” Khal examined him with a sardonic glitter in his eyes. “Perhaps you may serve as more than just a toy.” He turned back to Maglakh. “Where are they now?”
“In the dungeons beneath the fortress, lord. The other captives—city trash, common soldiers, and the like—are being executed. But I left strict orders that Severakh and the Sentinel’s granddaughter were to be kept isolated, to await your intentions for them, lord.”
“It is well that you did. But you speak only of the Sentinel’s granddaughter, and not of the Sentinel himself. It is he, above all others, that I desire. For years longer than you have been alive have I desired him. Where is he?”
“Alas, lord, your commanders also bungled his capture,” said Maglakh, trembling under the intensity of the three ruby eyes glittering at him out of the darkness. “Hundreds surrounded the house, then entered, thinking foolishly they were dealing with just a sick old mrem, though I had warned them again and again to beware. All perished in a sudden fire, lord. Even the Sentinel himself.”
“But the granddaughter escaped? A flawless cream white, you say? It is well that you captured her.” The three ruby eyes now seemed to glitter with a weird hunger. “She will be the first of my collection, the first of many.”
“She used concealment magic to escape the fire, lord,” said Maglakh, uncertain what kind of “collection” Khal was talking about. “A magic too powerful for a mere girl. No doubt the Sentinel gave her his fragment of the Great Stone, like the one I had Nizzam here bring you.”
Khal glanced sardonically at the wretched Nizzam, who at once began to smirk and kowtow. “Give me the fragment.” He held out a webbed hand to Maglakh.
“Alas, lord, the girl subst
ituted a worthless piece of glass for it, somewhere during her flight. My first thought was to force the secret from her, but then I thought you would rather do that yourself.”
“A redeeming thought,” said Khal. “A thought that redeems much of your other—conduct. Yes, I shall enjoy drawing the secret from her. It may be long before I at last have her prepared for exhibit. Cragsclaw is said to be a great fortress. It needs be, to house the collection I have brooded upon for so many years in the darkness.”
“Cragsclaw, lord? I thought it was Ar the Eastern Lords intended to overthrow.”
“And so they shall—but not unless I first establish myself at Cragsclaw. The Three are still formidable. Their numbers and complicity must be reduced before an invasion can succeed. The Eastern Lords themselves know this, and there is no more strategic fortress than Cragsclaw for the purpose....”
He continued to meditate out loud, as if he were alone—or soon would be. Maglakh wondered if even capturing Srana and preserving Severakh alive quite redeemed his failure to deliver the Sentinel. He saw that Nizzam also seemed uneasy, as if his doom were only minutes away. They were both startled by the muffled blast of a horn echoing through the mountain.
Khal looked questioningly at them.
“A parley horn, lord,” explained Maglakh. “It sounds like it’s coming from right outside the entrance into the mountain. Perhaps one of your commanders wishes to confer with you. The city has been overrun—”
“But its army and citizenry escaped.” Khal silenced him, and turned and stalked up the mine shaft.
Maglakh and Nizzam crept after him, anxious to hear the news; more anxious still for a chance to slip away. Neither doubted that the reptilian sorcerer was on the verge of some evil tantrum.
His appearance before the troop of commanders outside on the mountain slope roused still more anxiety. The very desert chieftains seemed barely able to suppress their revulsion. The renegade highlanders were the most affected: their fur rose to a mrem.