by K. G. McAbee
But there were lines visible in the lustrous surface. Again, Val was almost positive that he had seen something very like them before. Pale gray lines, ever changing, ever twisting into new and horrible shapes and patterns. Pictures would form from those busy lines—clearly visible from Val's vantage point—pictures that drew the eye and enthralled the questing mind, pictures of hanged men and headless women and nightmare creatures that writhed and turned upon and into each other.
Garet squatted beside Val, his teeth chattering with the chill. The boy had kept up with the long legs of his master all that morning—Had it been a morning? Did this strange place have a morning?—his constant recriminations about almost being left behind his only conversation. They had traversed the alien landscape, skirting ice-coated pools of murky black. They had been forced more than once to backtrack around impassable upshot piles of smooth rocks, fearful all the while that they would lose their way. They had crossed plains of glutinous mud that sucked and squelched and threatened to pull the very boots from their feet; the mud, if mud it was, reached up insinuating tendrils of glossy black, wrapping around their legs like a living thing.
Each and every difficult step that they took toward the shimmering white tower appeared to thrust its shining surface further and further from them. A trick of the eyes, of the strange light? Val wondered if it was that…or something far less canny. Whatever it was, they had taken far longer to reach their goal that Val would have thought possible when they'd first begun their trek.
But they had arrived at last. They crouched at the bottom of a rise or hill, on the top of which rested the enigmatic tower.
Unfortunately, there was a most unexpected problem to add to their long list.
"Are you quite, quite sure that the mistress is in that horrible place?" whispered Garet, blowing on his frozen fingers in the vain attempt to bring some warmth back into them.
"If she's not, then your bandit friends have steered us wrong," Val replied, his voice gruff with concern for the boy.
For them both.
He eyed the skinny, shivering form beside him. How long a time had passed since the two of them—one, somewhat more precipitately than the other—arrived through the portal into this place? How long until the night appeared, thirteen stars as its herald? How much longer could he, could the boy, last in this insinuating cold that cut through their heavy cloaks like razors?
Long enough to free Madryn and get back to the portal, back to their own world.
Val offered up a prayer to any god that might be listening.
"Aanakun didn't lie about the portal, did he?" asked Garet with a flash of his usual spirit. "He didn't lie about the tower, or the way this place looks, or what we must watch out for, did he? Although I do admit, I was somewhat disappointed that he tried to prevent me from accompanying you. Still, I hope that all the time we spent last night, listening to him tell us all he knows of this eerie place, is not going to be wasted."
"But he never mentioned those, now did he?" countered Val, with a nod up the hill.
'Those' were the guardians of the tower, and Aanakun had most assuredly not mentioned them at all.
Val was not entirely sure that he would have mentioned them either—especially to anyone who had never seen them. For he was positive that it would take seeing for anyone to believe in such creatures.
And even then…
There were two of the creatures. One, the one that stood on the right side of the wide-open doorway to the tower, was the largest animal that either of them had ever seen. Or so they'd thought; an instant later, it had shrunk down to the size of a mewling puppy compared to its fellow guardian, which appeared on the other side of the open door.
But, the longer Val stared at the beasts, the more confused he became about their actual sizes and shapes. Oh, there were clear impressions of scales and claws, of long tails and more than the usual complement of legs, of gaping mouths full of rows and rows—and rows—of long sharp teeth. But the things would shift in and out of visibility, one moment clear and distinct in the biting air, the next dim and hazy, as if hidden behind vapors or the miasma that rose up in lazy waves from the icy ground.
"That looks to be the only entrance," Val whispered, nodding at the well-guarded black maw that broke the white expanse of the lofty spire. The opening lay just across a bridge that appeared to be composed of mist, pale and insubstantial. The vaporous bridge spanned a deep moat, in which they could see, floating to the surface of inky liquid, segments of bodies or limbs. These fragmented body parts would fly up from the dark waters and attach themselves to the guardian beasts, with audible and extremely unpleasant sucking sounds. Other chunks would detach from one beast or the other and fall down into the murky liquid with a repugnant splash.
"How are we going to get past those…things and get inside?" Garet asked as uncontrollable shivers wracked his scrawny frame.
Val had no idea. His heart was savagely thumping and exhaustion threatened to overcome him at any moment. He felt as if he'd lived on the edge of a precipice for years, and was losing his footing and ready to tumble over the side.
And always, he felt the need for speed.
Follow Madryn, get her back from whoever, whatever had taken her, get all three of them back to the portal, in as short a time as possible, wandering through a strange and savage land, thirteen stars in a darkening sky, hurry, hurry…
Damn the woman, Val thought in sudden, overwhelming anger. Damn the woman. Why had he ever agreed to accompany her on this useless, hopeless quest? It would have been better, far better, if he had died in the hunt that day, now so long in the past, than to have ended up in this hideous place, chasing after a woman who cared no more for him than she would a pet, an animal...
A slave.
He should have killed her on one of the many occasions when he'd had the chance, Val decided. Broken her neck with his own hands, as he'd done to his late mistress, or run her through with the sword she'd been idiot enough to give him. Giving an escaped slave, a gladiator, a sword? What sort of fool was she? And the way he had caught her watching him, many a time. Watching him, calculating just what use she could make of him, leading him on to do her bidding, making use of his own desires to enslave him anew…
Val's eyes narrowed in contemplation. Those eyes had changed in the last few moments, changed in this odd, uncanny light from their usual chestnut color…to a dull and ugly black, a black that seemed to draw light into them and reflect nothing back.
"Look, Master Val," whispered Garet, thrusting a sharp elbow into Val's ribs.
Receiving no answer, Garet looked up at his master's face, but instead came into range of those flat, black eyes. The boy gave a gasp and shrank away, raising his hands above his face in a protective gesture.
Val ignored the suddenly frightened boy; instead, he looked up at the tower.
One of the beasts that had been lounging beside the door was moving away, off to the right, disappearing around the bulge of the white tower. The beast shrank too quickly for something of its enormity, lessening in size as if it had gone a league away, instead of merely a few steps. Soon the creature was out of their sight, hidden by the round side of the spire.
Guard duty? Val gazed at the other beast in hazy wonder. Did the things walk some preordained course, protection for the tower? Was there another entrance on the opposite side? Did some other creature hold guard there, if so?
But Val knew what guarded this tower. Had known it for years…
Val stood up from behind the pyramidal stone behind which he and Garet were crouching, his body exposed from the waist up to any viewer that cared to look.
"Master!" Garet whispered urgently. "Master?"
Val reached down a long arm and seized the boy.
Garet stifled a shriek as strong fingers trained to kill encircled his bony arm and dragged him from behind the rock. Garet's boots scrabbled in the thick mud as he tried to gain purchase, tried to get away. But the boy was helpless in th
at strong, suddenly savage grip.
Val plucked the boy clear of the mud, clear of the rock, and tossed him over one shoulder.
Garet swung head down. With desperate squeaks and squawks, he protested this treatment and his undignified position.
Val ignored him. He lay a massive hand on the struggling boy's back, and began a slow but purposeful stride towards the tower at the top of the hill.
***
The single remaining guardian watched Val's approach with a benign, almost loving regard. It licked its scaly lips as if it could already taste the toothsome morsel walking toward it on determined—and, it decided, delicious—sturdy legs.
Val paused just out of the reach of a pair of man-length claws. He gazed up—and up—into the creature's golden eyes. Since there were three of these orbs to choose from, Val's flat, ebony eyes locked onto the one in the middle.
Val grinned.
The creature, which had opened its enormous mouth in a threatening snarl as Val approached, appeared a bit nonplussed as to how to react to a grin. It shut its toothy mouth with a snap, and a disappointed and sulfuric snort of overheated air rushed from all five of its nostrils.
Garet's squirming, which had been ongoing since he'd found himself suspended over Val's shoulder, stopped as a cloud of rank, disgusting breath enveloped him in his uncomfortable perch. The boy choked and coughed against Val's cloaked back, then twisted his shorn head at an awkward angle and was just able to see what was happening.
"Get out of my way," he heard Val snarl.
The creature that towered over them, its scabrous head held thoughtfully to one side, looked to be considering just where to bite Val—and, due to his unpleasant position, Garet—first. The boy gave a preparatory wiggle, desiring more than anything to escape from his untenable location; but a huge hand tightened painfully on his legs, and Garet stilled at once.
"Get out of my way," Val repeated, his tone no more pleasant than the first time he had so commanded the beast.
But this time, he punctuated his words with the slither of a sword leaving its scabbard.
The creature eyed the shining length of steel with one eye, which then turned upward to take counsel with the two other orbs that shown from sockets above it. Apparently, all three were in agreement.
With a snort of ponderous dignity, the beast shuffled away from the doorway.
Val, sword in one hand and Garet across his shoulder, still offering wistful albeit hopeless wiggles, marched across the bridge and through the unguarded tower door.
Chapter Twenty
"What is the meaning of this travesty, brother?" spat the cold voice. "The large one is inside our home already, and we have not prepared a suitable greeting."
An elongated figure of outlandish emaciation stalked back and forth across the round tower room; its emaciated bare feet appeared and disappeared like flickering ghosts beneath a flowing crimson robe.
In the center of the room, the mist-filled brass bowl that had once held a floating globe stood empty on its tripod, a shimmering pentagram etched in the dust on the floor beneath it. The globe itself, dull and flat now, its images lost, hung imprisoned between skeletal fingers. These bony fingers threw the globe like a child's toy from one pale hand to the other, petulant irritation evident in each quick, short toss.
Against the wall, the long stone table had been swept clear of its esoteric rubble. Gone were skulls and skin-bound books; gone were enchained ravens and glass jars with grinning, pickled heads; gone were piles of manuscripts covered in arcane symbols.
Now, the only burden the table bore…was Madryn.
Stretched across the icy stone, her wrists and ankles bound to the tops of the table legs with manacles of rusty iron, Madryn gazed up through slitted eyes, counting the arching stones that supported the ceiling of the tower…to keep from screaming.
"Let him go, Valaren," Madryn said, her tone weak but controlled. "He's done nothing to you. Let him go."
A shambling figure dressed in dingy, colorless rags stumbled from the doorway towards the table, and stood looking down at Madryn's supine, defenseless form. One claw-like hand jerked the chain that held one of her ankles bound to the table—then smirked at the gasp of pain it drew forth from the prisoner.
"I'm very sorry to deny you this boon, my dear," drawled Valaren Starseeker.
But this was not the stylish courtier, toast of her majesty's court, dressed in foppish silks of rainbow hues. No, this Valaren was a scarecrow of a man, his wasted face drawn and pasty, the skin of his hands wrinkled and sere. A thick scar circumnavigated his reedy neck, and his overlarge head jerked and bobbled on its unsteady perch, like a loose button hanging from a single thread.
"Very sorry indeed. But how else can I return to my former glory, without his necessary assistance?" continued Valaren, with a smile that split his ashen face in two uneven segments. "Surely you cannot expect me to remain trapped in this body—that you condemned me to, as you recall—forever?"
Madryn turned her head to glare at the creature that stood beside the table. His scanty hair grew in patches on his leprous skin, and his eyes were sunken black lesions in his pale flesh.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, considering. "I think that body rather suits your nature."
Valaren Starseeker gave a vicious tweak to a dangling chain, and was rewarded by another gasp of pain.
"I have a far better body on its way to me now," he grinned down at Madryn, a thin trickle of spittle drooling from his slack mouth. "A body trained and tempered and honed for strength and endurance. Why, it's almost as strong and as beautiful as the one you tried to destroy, my dear. My mind is already half inside its new host, you know. The rest of the procedure will take but a short time. And then…and then, my darling Madryn, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you lust after me once more, as you have lusted after this burly slave of yours for these last days and weeks. What a jest, Madryn! What a deliciously unholy jest! I, whom you struggled to refuse again and again—aye, and succeeded more than once, I will admit—I shall be inside a body from which you cannot keep away. Won't it be a pretty sight?"
Madryn twisted arms and legs against the restraining iron, adding to the blood that already trickled down each table leg in a slow, lazy stream. On the dusty stone floor beneath her rested four tiny onyx bowls, one set at each table leg; each was nearly half full of scarlet fluid, beginning to congeal already in the frigid atmosphere.
The elongated form dressed in flowing crimson stalked toward the table where Madryn lay, stopped short beside the ravaged form of Valaren.
"You need not wait much longer to see your friends, my dear," said a cold, clear voice. A skeletal hand rose up and pushed back a deep ruddy hood.
Billows of hair, as chalk white as the stony walls, poured out of the hood to hang down the back of the crimson robe.
"My dearest brother Valaren and I have waited long for our revenge against you," said the woman thus exposed, her fiery eyes burning down on Madryn from a milk-pale face. "Now that our time has finally arrived, I would have it last as long as possible." The tip of a pink tongue jutted out through alabaster lips, was captured for an instant between snowy teeth and then released. The woman's scarlet eyes caressed her brother's shaking form. "My beloved Valaren will be grateful to me for this boon I bring him," she whispered as she ran one gaunt finger around Valaren's slack, drooling lips. "Will you not, my darling brother?"
"Isole, you know that I will worship you forever, as I have always done," promised her brother, his head wagging on its damaged stalk. "You and I, my dearest sister, with these two fine, new bodies, will take our rightful place in the warm world on the other side…and leave this empty place to our father and all his ilk."
Isole shrugged out of her enveloping ruby robe; it dropped to the dusty floor to puddle in a carmine pool about her bare bony feet. Her meager frame was wrapped and wound in thin strips of silk, ivory as her skin and hair. Her face gaunt, her cheeks hollow, her fierce burning eyes glar
ing out of shadowy pits, she lifted thin lips in a snarl of a smile.
"My most beautiful sister," whispered Valaren.
The door to the tower study burst open.
Chapter Twenty-One
Val stood in the doorway to the tower room.
His burly arms were bare to the shoulders; the muscles stood out across those shoulders like twining ropes of sinewy steel. His coarse linen shirt was torn to remnants, and the leather jerkin that he wore over it was open down to his flat belly, exposing his broad chest scattered with ruddy curls. His legs, long and thick with muscle, were widespread, and his feet planted firmly on the cold stone floor.
There was a time when he would have been a formidable sight. But now, that heavy muscular body was oddly unthreatening. Val's arms hung loose at his side, his hands empty and slack. No blade dangled from about his lean waist, no dagger peeked from the top of a high boot.
"There, Madryn, you see what a beauty I shall be?" crowed Valaren as he rubbed his pallid hands together in delight; narrow strips of ashen skin peeled from them and fell to the floor. "Even better than my last body, is it not, my dear? It is a pity about all those scars, though."
Madryn twisted her head painfully to one side.
Val walked with slow, measured steps into the center of the study, his dull black eyes blank, his face empty. By the shallow brass bowl on its tripod he stopped, as rigid and lifeless as a statue.
"Valerik," breathed Madryn, straining to read some familiar expression in those blank, barren eyes.
Isole laughed. That laugh slithered about the room like a viper, venomous and deadly. "He's almost gone, your Valerik. Soon he will be only what we have made him."
Valaren Starseeker shuffled toward the rigid statue of flesh that stood so silent and still in the center of the lofty room. He stared up in incredulous, delighted wonder at this fresh new creature he had almost made his own, his diseased gaze crawling like maggots across the muscular form, lingering in pleasure on the vacant face.