As Hiero returned the guards’ salute, reining Klootz to a walk, he reflected that there was no point in telling his companion that he too could avoid such places of peril by the same methods. Idly, he mind-probed Amibale, confirming again that the lad had a mind screen as good as his own. The high nobles were often taught the technique in the monastery schools they attended when young, though the practice was falling into disuse, since the church saw no need for it any longer.
Hiero threw him a farewell, then forgot Amibale as he dismounted and headed for his own quarters, his mind burning with this new thought. No need for mental training? And this at a time when the Unclean were putting forth their greatest effort! The rot was deep in D’alwah, deep indeed. A lot of grubbing and wrenching would be needed to tear it out in the face of ignorance and superstition, especially if the mental masters of evil were actively on the scene, as he and Brother Aldo suspected. The Metz priest was still fuming inwardly as he came into his apartment, his expression as he passed the guard in the corridor making that experienced courtier refrain from greeting him.
“Well,” his wife said brightly. “We’re alone. I could feel a black cloud coming up the stairs; from your face, I see its origin. What has the mighty master of the marvels and mysteries of Metzland found to annoy him this time?”
Hiero smiled in spite of himself as she kissed him. “Call it the murk and mire of maleficent, monstrous, and malign motivations. Allied,” he added, drawing breath, “to the marble-brained moronity and mind-bending muddleheadedness of your—” Here, a small palm covered his lips.
“I know, I don’t even have to guess. The stupidity of the local church, the decay of moral fiber among the priesthood and nobility, the unwillingness to face facts and see how the enemy has moved among us. Right on all counts, am I not?”
“On all. And more. But I shouldn’t bother you on party night.
It’s mid-afternoon already. Is that your party dress?” he asked, visibly admiring the semitransparent white shift which appeared to be her sole garment.
“You idiot! This is a house robe! Party dress indeed! Why did I yoke myself to a barbarian peasant who wouldn’t notice if I wore rags instead of proper clothes?”
“Well,” Hiero said, “you were hardly wearing even that when I first saw you. One look at all that smooth skin, indecent though it was, and I said to Klootz, ‘Klootz, old boy,’ I said, ‘who needs clothes?’ Ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.”
He dropped into a broad chair and she came and plumped herself into his lap. Sometime later, she sat up and looked serious. “Is there something new bothering you? Have you learned anything today?”
“No.” He rose and walked to the narrow window, to stare out over the city, whose noise reached their tower suite in a muted hum, before he answered.
“But I saw a fresh head of one of the river monsters on a spike. Old Jabbrah the guard said that the things are much more numerous and more dangerous in recent years. Could be the Unclean are behind it. Nothing there they couldn’t handle in some dirty way or other. That’s not the real problem, though, at least not at the moment. What bothers me is the increasing feel that there is something at work right here, under our noses. I even felt suspicious of that young ape Amibale for a second. But there’s something going on and I can’t find it, despite all I’ve learned.”
“A lot of it is probably nerves, plus having to wear what you think of as silly costumes and be on display all the time. Though,” she added, “if you were a local, you wouldn’t jib at being suspicious of Amibale. He’s a young brat; but after all, he is also next to me in the royal succession, you know. My father has a lot of plans for him, if we can ever get him to grow up a little. Thank goodness, he doesn’t take after his mother. The father was a bit dumb—cousin Karimbale, that is. But Fuala—whew!”
“What was her problem?” Hiero asked idly, still staring down over the distant streets. “I mean, she’s dead, isn’t she? And the father, too?”
“Very,” was the dry answer. “A lover, one of many, stabbed her while in the ducal bed. He was pulled between two mad hoppers until he came apart. Lese majeste and all that. Frankly, my father was relieved. She never came to court much. Too many eyes. But I remember her well. God knows, she was really beautiful, but there was something purely evil about her. She spent lots of time off alone somewhere in the forest when she was down south, and she used to take Amibale off with her for weeks at a time with almost no attendants except some scary jungle folk who were her family’s personal pets. She may have been just a nasty slut, but I never trusted her, nor did Dad. He always felt she had political ambitions. She really ran the duchy, and that fool of a husband did whatever she said. Some of her punishments for slaves were drastic. No, Fuala was not nice. Amibale is far better off with her dead. If she is dead.”
“You just said she was very dead indeed. What kind of a remark was that, may I ask?”
It was Luchare’s turn to look away, and Hiero realized with some amusement that she was actually embarrassed.
“More than a few people thought she was a witch, and of course they can’t be killed, except in special ways.” Luchare turned to look him in the eye. “If you must know, she made my skin crawl. I’m not afraid of very much, but I was terrified of her. Of course she’s dead, but she radiated such intensity, along with so much nastiness, all as smooth as ice, that she, well, she still makes me nervous, that’s all. Karimbale died a month after she did. They said it was disease,” she added with seeming inconsequence.
“Well,” her husband said soothingly, “we all have a few people who get our backs up. And speaking of getting backs up, I had better see to that inspection of the guard detachment, or the southern traders’ delegation will have theirs up when I’m late to receive them in audience with your father. See you back here at dress-up-and-be-a-fool time.”
She threw a pillow at him as he went out the door.
The ball was indeed a thing of splendor and color such as Hiero could never have imagined. The Great Hall was lighted with lanterns and cressets and filled with a thousand fragrances. His azure and gold robes and hood were drab compared with most of the costumes. The king was all in purple and white, with a blaze of great gems. Luchare was sheathed in emerald green, almost without jewels, save for the great bracelet of the tree women flashing on one bare, dark arm; a green half-mask accentuated her lovely face. The priests of the Church Universal attended in their magnificent robes, since this was a state occasion to be blessed. And clad, masked, and jeweled in the colors of the rainbow, the nobility of the realm spun and wheeled to the beat of the drums and horns playing the exotic southern music. The women were no more colorful than the men.
Hiero had little opportunity to do more than gain a general impression. He was leaning against a marble pillar, studying the scene in real wonder, when an upper servant touched his arm.
“Pardon, your Highness, but there is an urgent message. You are wanted in the hall at once. It’s from one of your guardsmen, I gather.”
Wondering what this might mean, Hiero followed the man, whose face was vaguely familiar. As he left the vast ballroom, he sent a thought to Luchare. She was out in the middle of the floor, apparently being dutifully attentive to some well-connected idiot whose family controlled something important.
A message from some guard, my love, supposed to be urgent. Back soon.
There was a sense of laughter and warm love in her answer. Take your time, but not too long, love. There are five fat ladies you must dance with before you can really leave—all for the honor of the kingdom!
He grinned and followed the man through a door into a small side room off the main hall, his mind still on Luchare. He was suddenly conscious of quick movement to his right, but he had no time to turn. Then the blow struck his head, and his consciousness departed.
II. A MAN ALONE
For a long time, there was no real waking period, but there were impressions—impressions which Hiero knew were real
and not the stuff of nightmares.
Faces swam before his blurred vision. There was the face of Joseato peering down at him, while he lay strapped to a bench in some dim room in the rabbit warren of the palace vaults, a place half-glimpsed through pain and the agony of his aching head. The face was no longer that of the harassed functionary, but something older and colder, the eyes gleaming with mockery and triumph. Hiero realized that he had never really seen Joseato’s eyes before and cursed himself in some far corner of his mind. Out of the familiar face glared the gaze of the Unclean!
Hiero writhed frantically against the bonds which held him fast. The movement brought another face into view, and horror stilled his struggles. It was the face of Amibale Aeo, and from the young eyes came the same blaze of pure evil, with something else added to it; Amibale was quite mad, the madness mixed with the malign blasphemy which was the essence of the Unclean. Memory flickered across Hiero’s tormented mind. She was a witch, the dulled memory said, fighting the constant pain. She took him on trips to the jungle.
He felt a fresh stab in his arm and saw that Joseato held a glass tube capped with a bloody needle aloft.
“We can kill him later,” came a harsh whisper. “Not now. The chances are that the princess would know and act. They are sure in the North that he can talk to her mind. But if she feels no death, only silence, that gives us time. They say this kills the mind powers, but they warn us to be wary; he is strange and powerful. He must die, but away—far away. Distance lowers the mind touch. Even he cannot reach over long distances—not yet. He must stay drugged. Then he will be silent until he dies. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes. Quite well.” The beardless face grimaced, and the ghastly eyes still shone from the young, unlined face. “I will get him away. Go back to the ball. I will follow shortly. Both of us should not be away. Leave this to me. One of my caravans leaves for the west at dawn and…”
Then the pain became too great to fight, and Hiero fainted.
During the following hours, he woke at random intervals, sometimes hot, sometimes chilled with unnatural cold. Tightly bound with dirty cloths, he lay in some strange thing that creaked, swayed, and stank. He wondered idly if he were on a ship, but it did not seem important. He tried weakly to use the mind touch, but nothing happened, and he knew without conscious consideration that he had lost it. Just as he had been robbed of his physical freedom, his mental strength had been despoiled. All sense of time and distance seemed lacking, too, and he had no idea of where or when this was. He dimly remembered being fed some vile broth. He dimly knew it was drugged, but he had no power to resist; he swallowed whatever they gave him, half in a coma. The strange, savage faces he glimpsed at times meant no more to him than any other elements of a seemingly endless nightmare. At times it seemed dark, at others light, but that did not seem important.
Then there was a sudden, hideous chorus of shrieks, followed by a wild discordance of meaningless cries, vibrations, and movements. The thing which carried him lurched violently, and a vast weight fell upon him. Some of his wrappings were torn in the convulsive motions of the weight. For seconds, pain shot through his legs. Instinctively, he kicked as hard as he could, some faint surge of adrenaline coming to his aid, and he found himself almost free of the weight. His eyes were covered, and he could see nothing. His hands were bound, but he could loose them…
Don’t loose them! Lie quiet, the inmost voice of his being warned. It is death to move.
He heard quick, almost furtive movements and the sounds of metal scraping and leather creaking. A voice muttered nearby and was answered by another farther off. There was a thudding as of beasts moving fast, then silence. Still he lay motionless, his tired mind intent only on making no sound. Presently, without knowing he had done so, he fell asleep.
When he awakened, he was hungry and thirsty, but not unreasonably so. His legs seemed free, though not his hands, and some cloth binding still covered his eyes. It was an easy matter to pull away the rag with which his eyes had been shrouded, even with bound hands. He gazed about, blinking in the light of the afternoon sun. He was lying in a hollow, under some low, scrubby bushes. Some large object pressed against his face, looming high over him and obscuring his vision. An already strong smell of decomposition informed him that it had been some animal. He was also tangled in a mesh of what seemed to be canvas and leather.
He lay quiet for a bit and listened. There was a light breeze playing through the bush above him, but the only other sound he could hear was a cackling, gabbling noise which came and went, sometimes rising to a squawk, then dying down again. He had no difficulty in identifying the voices of scavenger birds and he realized he must be lying in a place of death.
His mind was clearing rapidly now. He examined his hands. They were not bound with chains or leather thongs, as he had feared, but only with strips of cotton rag. Evidently his captors had feared no serious effort to escape.
It was no trouble to free himself. Then he pulled himself up over the dead beast whose body had sheltered him.
Five dead, gray kaws, the common beast of burden of D’alwah and the far South, lay about a small clearing. He was peering over the corpse of a sixth, and the broken-off shaft of an arrow an inch from his face was sufficient explanation of its death. Four absolutely naked men, their bodies in contorted attitudes, lay mingled with the dead cattle. Everything had been stripped from the dead, save for the battered harness of his own mount—for such he realized it must have been. He had been carried in some kind of crude canvas and leather litter on its broad back.
A flock of small, black vultures with oily, naked heads were tearing at the dead men. They looked up alertly as his head appeared, then took wing to settle in nearby bushes. Nothing else moved, and the only sound was the muted cackle of the scavengers.
Forcing his mind to throw off its dullness, he tried to reason out what must have happened.
The four men, and perhaps others, were taking him somewhere, walking alongside the kaws. They were ambushed, probably at dusk or even at night. His beast had died instantly, almost, but luckily had not fallen quite on top of him. The attackers’ hasty search had missed him, sheltered in the wreckage of his litter and almost covered by the kaw’s body. The ambushers had been in a hurry, probably afraid of discovery and pursuit, and they had decamped hastily after stripping the dead of everything they could find and use.
Hiero’s legs were as long unused as his head, but he staggered to the middle of the clearing. The croaking of the birds had grown louder, but they did not take wing as he surveyed the scene at closer range.
The dead men were unknown to him. He did not like what he saw of them, particularly since he was now sure they had been his late captors or guards. Even allowing for the agonies of death, they were unprepossessing, being small and of a sallow white color. Their long hair was also pale, and they were clean-shaven, with narrow eyes and protuberant jaws. They somehow did not appear to be creatures of daylight. He wondered who they were and where they had been taking him.
Staring at the landscape of thorn scrub about him in the waning afternoon sun, he forced his dormant training to come back to him, despite his spinning head. Slowly at first, he began to search for anything which might be useful. No weapons lay about, though he was sure there had been plenty of them when the attack came. Indeed, nothing lay about except the corpses. Aside from missing him, the attackers had done a most complete job of plunder. Even the arrows had been retrieved, save for the stub buried in his kaw. There was nothing he could use and no clue to either his captors or those who had slain them.
Other than worn leather shorts and sandals in which he found himself dressed, he had absolutely nothing.
He was just beginning to examine the tracks which littered the clearing, finding only the rough marks of booted feet and some hoof prints of kaws, when the carrion birds fell silent, then lifted from the bushes. From, a remote distance to the east, there came the faint note of a questing horn.
Hiero stood frozen. The birds had flown off low over the thorny scrub, not high in a flock, for which he was grateful. He did not know who had sounded that horn, but as far as he was concerned, this empty waste held nothing but foes. And they might have marked the birds rising.
Again the horn sounded, a solitary call. This time it was answered from the south and the north, though both calls were far off and still well to the east of his position. There had been at least four horns, he estimated, well spaced, signaling position and future movement. Someone had been driving in a long line, looking for something. For what, if not for him?
Hardly thinking, his reflexes taking over, aided by years of training, the Metz stooped and seized a dead branch of thorn bush that was covered with small leaves. Quickly he erased all traces of his presence from the dry earth. Then he began to run slowly to the west, keeping to gravel where he could; when that was not possible, he brushed the ground gently to blot his tracks.
He ran for what he estimated was half an hour, maintaining constant awareness of where he trod. Behind him, the horns still called. The distance seemed the same as when he had first heard them, indicating that the pursuit was moving at roughly the same speed as he was.
The sun was now sinking fast ahead of him, and it showed him that the scrub was thinning out. There were more patches of sand and pebble underfoot now, and both the bush and the sparse, wiry grass had almost disappeared. The color of the earth itself had changed from a sandy brown to a bluish gray.
Later, the sound of the horns changed. At least two of them pealed out in short, summoning notes. Hiero knew they had come upon the dead and were signaling a rally. He trudged grimly on. It was agonizing to think that they might be friends, perhaps sent by Luchare to rescue him, but the chances were too small; he had no idea where he was or how far he had come since being kidnapped, but it must be a long way. If he were right, the blueness of the ground and the increasing absence of vegetation meant that he was heading into fresh and unknown dangers. He had seen this thinning scrub far to the north and knew that it portended the approach of a desert. In the latitude of D’alwah, there was only one kind of desert marked on the map—one of the Deserts of The Death.
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