The Malmillard Codex

by K. G. McAbee

  "You've been inside?"

  "Several of us have been just on the other side of the portal, on the very outskirts of the place that exists there," Aanakun admitted with a nod. "It is one of our tests, when new arrivals come from the city or some village desiring to join our band. If an initiate can enter through the portal and stay there in view of the central tower for the space of one full day, sunrise to sunset, then she or he is accepted into our band."

  "Tower?" asked Garet, even his normally high spirits somewhat dampened by the otherworldly hum that still surrounded them, an irritating insect of noise. "What tower?"

  "The tower…the tower that reaches to the sky within that dark and frigid place," said Aanakun, unsuccessfully trying to suppress a shudder.

  "So the things that took Madryn went through this portal, into a strange cold land, at dawn today? And to follow her, I must go through it too, and at sunset, I take it?" Val asked to make quite sure he understood. He was almost sure that he remembered this very tower from a recent dream, though the image was vague and unreal.

  But it didn't matter. If that was where Madryn was, then that was where he was going too.

  But he thought again of that tower in his dreams and shivered, though the cave was warm and dry.

  "We test our initiates by sending them in to spend the day," Aanakun reminded Val. "We know not what might happen if one enters at night, for the few who have tried it…did not return. That is why I think it safer if you enter at sunrise, and remember to return at sunset when the portal opens again. Time travels on different feet inside that land beyond the portal; days, even longer, will seem to pass for you as you wander there. You must keep careful watch upon the sky. It will darken from its ruddy hues to a jetty black, and stars will wink into view, one by one, until there are thirteen. Then the portal will open. Remember, the most stars that any of our brethren have ever counted there—and lived to tell of it—are thirteen."

  "So I must spend my time counting stars?" Val laughed grimly. His hands moved in slow and measured strokes as he ran a whetstone down the length of his blade. The scrape and singing of stone against steel punctuated his remarks. "I don't think so. I will enter, find Madryn, and then bring her back. And nothing, not even stars, had better get in my way."

  "Perhaps you will," shrugged Aanakun. "Stranger things have happened, to be sure."

  The stone ceased its constant motion for an instant, and then resumed.

  "Why are you helping me?" Val asked. He'd wondered this many times over the course of that day, but he'd been too pressed by his need for hurry to voice his question. Now that he'd seen the trail he had followed end up at the edge of that odd stone portal to nowhere, he'd started to accept the other things Aanakun told him. But doubt still nagged him, and he had no desire to risk Madryn's safety on a man he'd just met.

  The desert bandit scratched his grizzled beard. "We make our living off others, as most do through all the lands, I suppose," Aanakun began; the faint echoes of his deep, slow voice were captured and reflected by the uneven cave walls. "But we have learned from the Malmillard that this world in which we live is a fragile creature, needing our protection. We do our little part to keep it on a stable path."

  Val spat out a bitter laugh, thinking of his time in the slave pens, in the arena, his brief days in the house of Lady Alysa…thinking of the kind of man Valaren Starseeker had been, and the damage he had worked on Madryn and others. "Stable?" he asked. "If you consider the way our world works 'stable', then perhaps we'd be better for a bit of a stumble."

  Aanakun scooped up a fistful of sand and smiled as he held it, grains trapped within tightly clenched fingers, before Val's eyes.

  "Balance in all things, Master Val," he said, then open his sand-filled hand flat. At once, rivulets began to flow from his horny palms, and soon most of the sand had sought and returned to its former place upon the ground, leaving only errant granules on the broad flat hand. "Some of us suffer more than others, it is true. Some are luckier than others. But if they who live behind that portal were to have their way with us—we would all suffer, all the time."

  The sing and scrape of stone and steel was the nomad's only reply.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When the portal began to open, Val caught his breath in wonder.

  The portal had hardly been worth a glance when first they'd seen it over the top of the ravine. If not for the obvious ending of the trail he'd been following at its very mouth, Val would have passed it by, thinking it to be merely a fragment of some ancient, forgotten temple left to rot in the desert, or perchance a bit of the skeleton of some primordial building, tumbled and worn by endless desert winds.

  The portal consisted of a pile of weathered gray stones gathered into two uneven columns; one was as tall as three tall man, the other shorter by almost one half; there was perhaps half the height of the taller column between them.

  Yet, surely the thing's age was such that it must have stood here abandoned in this ravine when it was filled with rushing waters? But no, Val remembered. According to Aanakun, the portal had appeared only some thirty years before.

  Val had spent a restless night, hardly daring to sleep for fear of missing the few moments he had to make use of the gate, and not trusting anyone to awaken him in time. He'd tossed and turned, dozing off for brief moments and then jerking awake, his nerves clamoring in alarm. He was glad of this alarm; he had no wish to spend this night of all nights submerged in the memories and life of such a man as Valaren Starseeker—not when he must go through the portal the next dawn.

  Now it was almost time to enter. Now, as the portal changed and shifted before his wondering eyes as he watched it from the cover of a pile of rocks, its image of age and abandonment vanished, shattered in an instant. The topmost stone began to glow from within, losing its age-worn appearance as the first rays of the sun struck it over the tip of the ravine. Coruscating beams of light, their colors unnamable to Val, spat out like bolts of lightning from the stone as the sun's rays caressed it, and the substance took on the glow of polished marble. A wind leaked from between the columns—no warm desert zephyr, but icy cold and thick with the smell of danger.

  "When the last stone of the right member begins to glow, you must enter between them," repeated Aanakun in Val's right ear, his voice rising to a shout to be heard over the rising icy winds. "Remember the thirteen stars and be ready to come back through when they appear."

  Val nodded. "I'll remember." He wondered if Aanakun realized he had no intention of leaving without Madryn. Whatever had happened to her, whether harmed or whole, mad or sane, Val would find her and bring her back.

  Or die there, in that strange place beyond the portal, in her arms.

  Garet squawked in Val's other ear, his voice tinny and uncertain over the rising cacophony. "I'll help you to remember it all, Master Val. Who can count better than a thief, after all?"

  The boy's cheerful nature was only slightly damped by the uncanny sight that occurred before them. They squatted, two men and a ragged boy, behind a tumble of rocks, protected to a small extent from the frigid winds, but not at all from the sounds that rose like banshee wails about them.

  Val cast a quick look at Aanakun, jerked his head in Garet's direction. The bearded chieftain caught the look and nodded. Val watched the bandit lay a hand across Garet's back, entangling his fingers in the boy's ragged tunic. Garet, engrossed in the eerie sight before him, took no notice of that small, surreptitious movement.

  Val had to enter the portal. He did not have to drag the boy inside with him. Garet would be safe with the nomads until Val's return—if he returned.

  Another stone began to throb and sing with color and light, then another. The winds rose in force, became a gale of icy fear.

  Another stone, then two more.

  Val tugged at the straps that bound a small pack of supplies to his back, ran a finger across the hilts of the dagger in each boot top, then laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. A brief glimpse o
f the past rose before his eyes—how he'd hugged Madryn when she'd bought the sword for him…the surprised look she'd had in her eyes…

  He'd see those eyes, gray shot with violet, again. Val had no doubt of it.

  He would not, could not allow himself to doubt.

  Three stones were left that had yet to join their brethren in colorful display. Val stood up, buffeted at once by the whipping winds that slapped at him with icy fingers. Garet stood up beside him, a smaller pack on his back, a long dagger in a leather sheath cinched tight around his narrow waist. The boy's eyes and mind were so caught up in the display going on before them that he did not notice when Aanakun stood up behind him and tightened his grip on Garet's tunic.

  The next to last stone began to glow on its very topmost edge.

  "Now!" shouted Aanakun.

  Val began to run towards the portal, gauging his steps so that his timing would be perfect.

  "Master!"

  Val heard Garet's faint wail behind him.

  Good, he thought as the cold winds stung his face, the portal looming tall before him. At least the boy will be safe.

  Val paused for one measured heartbeat at the very entrance to the portal, as the last stone of the towering left pylon was touched with light. The temperature of the air, already icy, dropped even further; Val could feel the frigid winds trying to rip the hair from his head, the clothes from his back, forcing him, shoving him backwards as he gathered his courage for the final step.

  In the next instant, the last stone shimmered with light. A shivering spiral of uncanny colors opened up between the pylons, pulsing and glowing with magical splendor.

  Val flung himself through the gate…and disappeared.

  With a wailing shriek and the ripping of rotten cloth, Garet tore free of Aanakun grip and dashed forward. Just as the spiral that had swallowed up Val began to shrink from its former magnificence, the boy leaped into the center of it.

  In less time that it takes to wink an eye, Aanakun the bandit chief stood alone before two tumbled piles of weathered stones. The desert dawn was still and warm around him.

  In one outstretched hand dangled a dirty strip of torn cloth.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "You were going to leave me behind," complained Garet for the hundredth—or was it thousandth—time.

  They were trudging along a narrow rocky pathway that skirted a perfectly round pool of dark, strangely shimmering luminescence.

  "And after all I've done for you, too," Garet continued.

  Val made no reply; he was engaged in rubbing his sore ribs, where a flying mass of bony boy had struck him.

  Just after Val passed through the portal, he turned to watch it close behind him; he wanted a clear image of just what he needed to look for, so that when he found Madryn and brought her back here, he'd know exactly what it looked like when it was time to go through the gate.

  He gazed up, up, up. On this side of the portal, the stones higher that the highest tower, and they displayed a workmanship that far surpassed any Val had ever seen. The stones fit together in jagged, uneven seams, though their edges were smooth and sharp and there was no visible mortar. Each stone section was of a different shade, gray, bluish, ruddy, and colors that had no name.

  The icy winds that buffeted Val on the other side of the portal were nonexistent here; in some fashion, they'd died away somewhere between this place and the desert from which he'd come.

  Val gazed up at the tall pylons, watching the central spiral through which he'd leapt as it shrank away with a soft, murmuring moan of whirling air.

  It was at that exact instant that a flying bundle, composed of little more than bony elbows and knees and outstretched sharp fingers, slammed into Val's broad chest, with the speed and accuracy of an arrow from a crossbow. Val fell backward, his arms with unconscious concern clasping Garet to his breast as they both tumbled into deep, sticky mud, just on the edge of a murky, ice-rimmed pool that bubbled busily.

  Garet jumped up, as unharmed and resilient as a toy, and like a toy, he bounced around Val, all the while making his aggravation known in a squeaky, offended voice.

  "You tried to leave me behind! How dare you, Master Val? Who would help you rescue the mistress?"

  Val lay there gasping, unable to make an intelligible reply as his catapulted servant knocked all the breath from him.

  Before Val could totally regain his breath, Garet's strident voice died away into a mumble as the boy began to notice the sights around them.

  The two of them had just left desert steppes and ravines clogged with sand, just departed a land of heat and dry air. In the space of a few heartbeats, they had arrived in a damp and somber landscape, composed of single rocks rising from pits and pools of thick, viscous mud that was black as pitch. These pools were scattered with a prodigal hand throughout their range of visibility, and each one was as perfectly round as a master navigator's glove, though varying in size from no more than a puddle, to vast lakes. Each rock that rose from the glutinous mud was of faultless geometric shape as well, ranging from soaring pyramids with sleek, shimmering points, to tiny cylinders with precisely rounded sides. Interspersed between these tarry bodies of water were open, empty pits.

  Garet pattered toward one of these, stared down into its depth.

  "Ah, Master Val?"

  Val had nearly regained his errant breath at last. He rose to his feet; the mud into which he'd landed made evil sucking sounds as he pulled himself away from it. Val looked at the boy.

  "I don't believe that this…hole has a bottom to it," Garet informed him.

  "Then," Val panted, "you won't…hit the bottom…when I throw you…into it."

  Garet did not deign to dignify this comment with a reply. The boy turned around in circles—staying far away from any open pit in the area—and observed the uncanny landscape that surrounded them.

  With his hands on his hips, Garet said, "Well, Master Val, what a place I have brought you to, have I not? Wait until I tell the others back in Lakazsh about this." He pattered towards Val, keeping a careful watch on his path. "But if you're quite through resting, sir, I really believe we should get on our way, you know," the boy continued testily. "I for one do not wish to spend any longer than necessary in this cold place. We should find the mistress and get back her, don't you agree?"

  Val nodded in agreement. They opened their packs and retrieved the heavy cloaks that Aanakun had insisted they bring. The thick goatskin coverings felt good against the piercing cold.

  "Take careful notice of our position, Garet, and of where we go," Val ordered as he buckled his swordbelt around the outside of his cloak. "That tall stone pyramid there will be our landmark; I don't see anything else around here like it. And there," he pointed off into the distance, then rubbed his hands together in the frigid air, "is the tower where Aanakun thinks they may be holding Madryn. We must be there, retrieve her, and be back here at the portal before the thirteen stars shine in the sky, remember."

  Garet shot a doubtful gaze at the heavens above them. Instead of blue depths, a vast ruddy dome stretched over them. What light there was apparently emanated from the very air about them, a cold clear light that cast few shadows. "I suppose there are stars? I suppose there is a night?" the boy squeaked. "Aanakun told us about them, to be sure, but what if he was wrong? Or mistaken? And is there a moon?"

  Val shrugged. It didn't matter to him if ships sailed across the night sky in this uncanny place, or flames of burning vapors, or dancing fishes.

  All he wanted was to find Madryn, and then get all three of them out of there.

  ***

  A sharp, agonized scream ripped through the still air, then traveled upward in measured cadences from the bowels of the tower.

  "One guest is already here, brother, and the other comes apace," laughed the cold voice; the laugh sounded like breaking glass.

  "But what of the small one?" complained the dark voice. "I like not the feel of the small one. He has the smell of…I do not
know. But I do not like the feel of him."

  A shower of tiny ice spicules rained down inside the round study at the top of the tower, to bounce and tumble on the chill stone floor. A mouse, daring a dash for a crumble of dried cheese, was pierced by scores of the minute frozen spears; the ice turned at once to a vivid crimson as they leached away the animal's lifeblood. The mouse twisted and twitched for a moment…then was still.

  "What can such an insignificant thing as that do to us, my brother?" asked the cold. "See what my magic does to small, soft things? Why worry now, when our plans are almost complete?"

  "True," agreed the dark in a considering tone.

  True…true…true…ue…ue…came the whispering echoes, fighting for their transient lives against another thin, reedy scream.

  The floating globe, suspended in dark and swirling mists, displayed deep in its depths a pair of tiny figures, one towering over the other, as they trudged through an eerie landscape.

  "But the small one has a most familiar smell," complained the dark. Skeletal fingers tapped against a flat tabletop of cold white stone; they made a sound like the clicking mandibles of a death beetle. "That smell offends me."

  "I will remove it for you, brother," said the cold in a conciliatory tone. "It will be my pleasure."

  "See that it is so, and you shall have a reward," promised dark in a syrupy voice.

  "My reward is to see you happy, dear brother, as always," said the cold. "Happy—and avenged."

  ***

  Val regarded the tower that crowned the outcropping of rock rearing above them—with a persistent, yet vague, memory of having somewhere, some time, seen it before.

  The tall cylinder of shining white stood out like a beacon against the murky sky, and the background of misty, parallel hills that rose behind it. The tower's construction was so detailed and precise that there were no lines to show where one stone left off and another began; it was almost as if the thing had grown straight up like some uncanny mushroom from the rotting, rancid soil.