War of Powers

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

  One of the boulders had come to life - or so it seemed for an instant. The thing was as big as a boulder but its hue was a shiny, bluish white, the colour of a drowning victim. Obscenely glistening tentacles waved, as fat and pale as maggots and as thick as his thigh. He watched one of the tentacles curl around the waist of a helot and lift him into the air. Great suckers sprouted like concave mushrooms from the back of the moist bulk. The thrashing helot was brought down close to them. The suckers clutched his flesh and clung horribly. The man went stiff in agony.

  Stillness fell, shroudlike. Fost and the helots watched, stunned, as the man's face contorted, purpled and seemed to fall in on itself like a collapsing tent. At the same time his body shriveled. With a rippling, smacking sound the tentacles pulled the empty husk from its multiple mouths and tossed it away. Blood drooled from the suckers.

  A spear drove into the monster's side. Black ichor jetted out with a reek that contracted Fost's nostrils and caught at the back of his throat. Their apathy gone, the thralls hurled themselves against the horror, hacking at its tentacles and jabbing its bloated side.

  Keening, the monster fought back. Its tentacles swooped like serpents, coiling around the helots and dashing them to lifeless rags against the rocks. Fost saw Ixrim seized, his dark face set in lines of determination as he sawed with his sword at the member holding him. The blade cut through rubbery flesh, causing the tip of the tentacle to fall away in a gush of corruption, but other tendrils lashed in to trap the wiry little helot. He was still resisting grimly as the suckers met his belly with a kiss that sucked the vitals from his body.

  Down on the plain the bear-riders must be attacking the Hurinzyn again, Fost thought, and it seemed to him that he could hear the drone of Kleta-atelk's chant. The Ust-alayakits could fight the enchanter's monsters for only a short time before they were overwhelmed. He had to act fast to defeat the shaman in time to aid them.

  But he had already stood by while slaves sold themselves as dearly as any free folk. He could stand by no longer. He raised his sword and approached the horror.

  Tentacles dipped toward him, to fall writhing like snakes as his basket-hilted broadsword cut them through. The monster's cries of agony rose to an intolerable pitch, but still Fost came on, swinging his blade until he waded knee-deep through slimy black foulness.

  Then he was beside the pulsating fat body of the thing. He cocked his arm to drive the sword to the hilt. From behind the bulk, like a sun rising, came a Face.

  It was a face of unearthly beauty, shining with a golden light. A high-cheeked, full-lipped androgynous face smiled an invitation. Fost looked into its eyes, great orbs of amber. The strength drained from his limbs.

  'You are different,' the Face said. 'Unlike these twisted rabbits. Your limbs are strong and straight, your chest broad, your face alive with arrogance.' The lips smiled. They gleamed like moist jewels. 'I would love you, outlander.'

  Fost's veins swelled with desire. It was as if the Face existed alone, discrete from the obscene bloated mass that was its body. The Face embodied all that he desired. His manhood burgeoned at his loins.

  Tentacles enveloped him, caressing, beguiling. He let them urge him forward. Their tips, facile and as dainty as a maiden's fingers, undid the thongs that sealed his breeches to peel the garment away.

  A coral tongue made a lascivious circuit of the lips. 'I would taste your flawless manhood, feel your virility flow into me. Come, come unto me, my love.' Lust and adoration glowed in the eyes.

  The lips waited, subtly parted. Desire filled Fost, but a small voice of rebellion spoke within him. Illusion! it cried. Beware! Yet he couldn't believe it. Within the circle of those red, red lips awaited beauty and satiation.

  Then he saw the gleam of sunlight on a tooth like a dagger's blade. 'Come,' urged the Voice. 'Give me your masculinity. Impale me with your hardness!' And Fost obeyed.

  The eyes closed ecstatically as his hips moved forward. But his arm moved too, and the eyes shot wide again as the tip of his sword sliced through the perfect lips, cleaved the pink tongue and punched out the back of the creature's neck. Rage blazed in its eyes. Its scream spattered Fost with blood. Then a dying spasm of the maggot-pale tentacles cast him away.

  He slammed into the ground, rolled over and lay retching until his stomach knotted spastically on nothing. His sword was still in his hand, the blade smeared with stinking black ichor. He glanced down and saw that his arm, the front of his body and the limp worm of his penis lolling across his thigh were all drenched with the foul stuff. He tried to vomit again but his belly had already emptied itself.

  Thirty feet away the monster jerked in its death throes. The head hung to one side and the ruined face was slack. The survivors of the assault group crawled away from the dying thing. Its blood fell on them like black rain.

  Gagging, Fost pushed himself to his feet. A monotonous chant penetrated the bleariness of his skull and brought about a sense of urgency. Kleta-atelk! He staggered toward the edge of the cliff.

  He swayed dizzily on the lip of the precipice. Grinding teeth into lower lip to focus his mind, he looked down. Out on the steppe a battle raged. Hulking shapes, indistinct with distance but obviously unnatural, fought with a pitiful few bear-riders. Gradually the monsters pushed the Ust-alayakits back. Fost saw Jennas, embattled and alone, laying about her with her greatsword. Badger-riders circled her, closing in as monsters tried to drag down her bear. She held her own, but the outcome was inevitable and couldn't long be forestalled.

  'Omnegallillagall, Ulltip, nasripul, zazzigazz ra!' The flow of syllables, nonsense to Fost, brought his attention to a point only yards under his boots. Kleta-atelk stood on his ledge, hunched against his skull-tipped staff, peering through round lenses of black glass as he sang his song of control. He must have heard the sounds of conflict so near above his head but he ignored them, trusting to the guardian horror he had left on the clifftops to deal with intruders.

  Weak as a newborn child, Fost bent down. His fingers grasped a rock twice the size of his head. Groaning, he swung it high. A twitch of the sorcerer's crooked shoulders showed that he had sensed the presence above him, but he wouldn't be distracted from his song.

  And then it was too late. The rock smashed his head into jelly.

  An oil lamp burned yellow and wavering inside Jennas's tent. From outside came the sound of merriment as the bear-riders celebrated their victory. A constrained tone underlay their revelry. The price had been high.

  Bathed, bandaged and somewhat restored, Fost lay on a bed of furs, drinking freely of heady yellow wine. Across the tent Jennas sat in a folding camp-chair. A child sat on the floor of the tent, slumped against her booted calf. It was a girl-child, not yet blooming into adolescence. She regarded the courier with immense indigo eyes. There was a haunting in those orbs but it faded almost as Fost watched. The girl had seen horror but being young would soon forget. Being not so young, Fost couldn't forget. He gulped down his wine and replenished the emptied goblet from a skin hung from a tentpole.

  Her hand lightly stroking the close-cropped plush of the girl's head, Jennas watched him. Golden highlights from the lamp danced in her eyes. On her face showed pity, but also admiration.

  'You destroyed Kleta-atelk and freed the land of monstrous evil,' she said, sipping moderately from her own goblet. 'You saved the children of the Ust-alayakits - among them my own Duri.' The girl glanced up gravely at her mother, who smiled in return, not even resembling the bear-riding Amazon who had earlier been sundering Hurinzyn bodies with single sweeps of her greatsword. 'Truly you were sent by Ust.'

  Fost grunted. He gazed into the wine, saw images there that made him squeeze his eyes shut and shuddered in revulsion. He felt soiled to the centre of his soul.

  For a time Jennas sat, hand on Duri's head, watching Fost. Outside, the celebration waned as exhaustion set in. The bear-riders returned to their own tents or drifted to the cliff dwellings. To the Ust-alayakits' astonishment the Hurinzyn had welcomed
them as liberators after the fall of Kleta-atelk. His magic had held them subservient, though he experimented on their living bodies and fed them to the nightmares he created. Their raids against their neighbors, the bear-folk, had arisen from the shaman's grim pronouncement: he would have his victims and cared little how he came by them. The Hurinzyn stole the Ust-alayakits' children to preserve their own. The bear-folk would take indemnity, of course, but having experienced the evil power of Kleta-atelk themselves, they bore the badger-clan surprisingly little malice. Some of the raiders had already paired off with some of the conquered tribes folk, and now retired to conduct further celebration in private.

  Eventually Jennas reached for a small brass bell and rang it twice. The hide flap of the tent opened promptly to admit an aged helot woman. 'The little one has had a long day,' Jennas told the servant. 'See her bedded down, Unphaia.' The hetwoman bent to kiss her daughter on the forehead. Then, clucking, the old woman herded the girl out of the tent and off to bed.

  Fost sat staring obliviously into his cup, concentrating on keeping his mind white and empty. A touch on his shoulder made him start.

  Jennas stood over him. Even in his numbed state, he was aware how splendid and barbaric she looked, the gold circlets around her brawny arms, heavy gold loops dangling from her ears and her shapeless garb of fur and hide not managing to hide the ripeness of her figure. The lamplight turned her skin to bronze.

  'If you turn inward, you won't come out, my friend,' she said. Her fingers stroked down his arm.

  He raised his hand to hers, meaning to pluck it away, sickened by the very touch. He paused, fingers hovering over the back of her strong hand. Don't blame her, a mental voice told him. She wasn't responsible for the blandishments of Kleta-atelk's guardian - nor the way you responded to them.

  His hand closed on hers in a desperate grip. She knelt. Her breath was warm on his cheek, honeyed by the wine. She kissed his ear. He snatched his head away as though her lips burned him.

  She put a hand to his jaw and forced him to face her. The lamp's glow turned her pillow-soft, but she was immensely strong, perhaps as strong as he. Though he tried to resist, he shortly found himself looking into her eyes.

  'When our young are taught to ride, sometimes they are thrown and hurt by accident and become afraid,' she said gently. 'We make them mount again promptly and ride, lest their initial fear stay with them always.' She kissed him on the lips. He did not respond, but neither did he draw away. He clung fiercely to her hand, the only anchor he could find in a chaotic world.

  'I know what befell you today. The thralls told me.' She took his hand and laid it on her breast.

  The flesh was warm and vibrant with life. Her heart beat powerfully and fast beneath his fingers. Slowly she drew his hand down until his fingers slid into her jerkin and touched her nipple. Her other hand slipped from his face and began unlacing his tunic. She kissed him again, and he returned it. Her tongue was strong and carried the taste of wine.

  His tunic opened. Jennas turned her attention to her own belt. Then her fingers groped for Fost's crotch. He moaned and tried to draw away. Leaving his hand clutching her breast as fervently as it had earlier clutched her hand, she grabbed the back of his neck and crushed his face to hers. Her other hand worked vigorously up and down.

  In spite of himself Fost was becoming aroused. He kneaded the handful of her breast, marveling at its firmness. He squeezed her thumb-thick nipples. She moaned and undulated against him.

  Her mouth parted from his. Her head dropped, her short red hair tickling down his stomach. He gasped and arched his back as her lips enfolded the head of his trembling manhood.

  Unbidden, the Face appeared behind his eyes, lips parted, teeth agleam. With a strangled shout, he tore himself from Jennas's embrace and rolled off the pile of furs.

  Jennas leaped to her feet. The short leather skirt she had donned after the battle fell from her hips, leaving her naked from the waist down. The fur of her sex was a vertical red-orange bar, pointing down between smooth, muscular thighs. One brown-tipped breast protruded from the front of her jerkin, jiggling to the angry rhythm of her breathing. Her eyes blazed.

  'Be that way then!' she raged at Fost. 'Be like a timid virgin boy, afraid of your own appetites! Go and become a Josselit, for all I care!'

  'Jennas, I . . . ' 'Enough of words! You fought like a man today - claim your reward like one now.' Contempt edged her voice. 'Or did Ust send us a eunuch for a champion?'

  His head fogged with wine and unwilling passion, Fost got unsteadily to his feet. 'You can't talk to me like that.'

  She slapped him. His head rocked and lights flickered inside his skull. He reeled back, blinking and rubbing his cheek.

  When his vision cleared, his jaw slumped in amazement. The hetwoman had thrown herself down on all fours on the furs, presenting her naked hindquarters to him. Her buttocks were sculpted hillocks of muscle. The pink lips of her vulva lay open, inner secretions reflecting the light like a jewel. The thick, urgent odor of her excitement filled his nose and set his heart beating even faster.

  'Well?' she asked. The word was a challenge. She confronted him with a choice: Take her or become a monk.

  She was right, you know, the courier thought. A bestial growl rose from his throat as his brief anger dissolved into passion. He dropped to his knees, laid hands on her buttocks. The flesh was like soft, warm marble. He throbbed with unbearable tension. Shaking with lust, he thrust forward.

  Jennas uttered a guttural exclamation of exultation as his manhood filled her.

  "I simply cannot see why you waste time mooning about this dreary valley.' Erimenes fluttered spectral hands in exasperation. 'Why trouble yourself over Fost? Forget him. The key to everlasting life lies within your grasp. Take it. You can seize the City in the Sky, and with your beauty and power enjoy an unending succession of far more skilled lovers.'

  'I wish you wouldn't go on so,' Moriana said, glancing in irritation at the spirit. 'You're just bored.' She began pacing to and fro by the campfire.

  'Indeed I am, as any sensible soul would be in such tediously bucolic surroundings.' He crossed an arm over his chest and laid elbow in palm. He tapped fingers against his chin, an action Moriana found disconcerting, since both fingers and chin lacked substance. Then he brightened. 'The time needn't be a total waste though. You could amuse yourself - and me - by engaging in self-stimulation. There's ample wood about. You could carve yourself a dildo of heroic proportions and . . .'

  'Enough!' snapped Moriana. She laid elbow in palm and tapped her own chin in unconscious imitation of the sage. 'I wonder how Fost fares.'

  'You know the great oaf lives, at any rate. Why, he positively seems to have covered himself in glory.' A sly look stole across the wispy blue features. 'Forget him, I say. It's for your own good. You saw the way that she-bear of a hetwoman cast covetous eyes on him, and her with mammaries the size of crystal balls! He's reveling this minute my lady, with never a thought for you.'

  Moriana rounded on him, hair flying. 'That's not true!''Prove me wrong.' Erimenes smirked. 'Employ your scrying spell.' Moriana chewed her lip for a moment, staring at Erimenes, who assumed a look of such lugubrious and obviously false concern for her welfare that she almost refused. But curiosity nagged at her. What was her lover doing? He wasn't the most continent man she'd ever known, and that red-haired hetwoman was definitely handsome in a coarse, emphatic way. Nor was Erimenes - damn his vaporous eyes! - in error about the way she looked at Fost. Moriana paced a minute more, then went to the nearby strem and dropped to her knees.

  'I don't doubt they'll adopt him into their clan,' said Erimenes, his voice drifting over her shoulder. 'He'll marry the chieftainess and raise up a brood of squalling, hirsute brats. Each spring he and she will ride off to the raid together, with matching bear skulls adorning their heads. Ahh,' he sighed loudly, 'a charming picture.'

  Moriana's ears burned furiously as she hurried through the words of the spell. The water stirred and gr
ew luminous.

  'I'll show you, Erimenes,' she flung back at the spirit. 'Fost will not betray my trust. He'll spurn that husky slut. . .'Her words trailed off as an image coalesced. 'Your definition of "spurn" and mine differ, lady,' Erimenes said judiciously, leaning forward to peer into the water.

  It required a moment for the princess's eyes to adjust to the gloom of the picture. It took more time for her mind to make sense of what she saw. A woman on elbow and knees, a man kneeling behind her on his knees . . .

  She realized what she was looking at and breath hissed inward.'She seems to find his spurning most salubrious,' Erimenes said. In stony silence Moriana plunged her hand into the water, dispelling the image. She stood and looked at the spirit's wavering form. Her eyes were like green metal.

  'We leave in the morning,' she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Stretching, Moriana emerged from the tent. It was of light, oiled skins stitched together and could be rolled small enough to fit in Fost's knapsack. Shivering in the chill dawn, Moriana thanked fortune she had it.