The Dead Kingdom (Seven Citadels)

by Geraldine Harris

  Two statues guarded the mouth of a river as black as the sea. They depicted a man with silver gloves carrying a scroll and a wand. As they passed between the statues Kerish could just recognize in their bland features the tormented face of Shubeyash.

  The Starflower entered a deep gorge but the silent wind was stronger than ever, filling their sails and pushing them deeper into Roac. On either side of the gorge the cliffs were crowned with high green walls, so they could see nothing of the vast city of Tir-Roac. Once, the gorge was spanned by a silver bridge. Across it moved a slow procession of gorgeously-robed children leading a blind-folded man by a halter hung with bells. The travellers could only wonder at the purpose of the procession as they were swept under the bridge.

  Gidjabolgo tried vainly to check their speed but at sunset the wind suddenly dropped and they were able to anchor beside a marble quay at the foot of a black stair. The stair was narrow and barely seemed to lean against the cliff-face, while at its feet black fountains played.

  "We seem to have been brought to an entrance to Tir-Roac, "said Forollkin uneasily, "but it's too late to climb the stair now. If you think this is the right place, Kerish, we'll wait here until morning."

  No-one volunteered to stand guard on deck. They went down to the cabin and Forollkin bolted the hatch from below. Like all of them, he was imagining what might come down the black stair in the watches of the night.

  For a long time Kerish lay in his hammock resisting sleep. He recited hymns and ancient prayers beneath his breath, remaining alert for the slightest noise from outside the boat. A little after midnight he did drift into an uneasy sleep. In his dreams he saw a golden casket and knew that it contained the fifth key but the casket stood on a stone altar at the furthest end of a great cave. To reach it Kerish was forced to sidle along a narrow ledge beside a horrible chasm. He was afraid to look down and kept his hands flat against the rock, his face towards the casket.

  Then the silence of the cavern was broken by a deep sigh, a sigh so desolate that he glanced around, expecting the very walls to drip with tears. His startled movements dislodged a shower of pebbles. He knew at once that the creature who sighed had heard him.

  “Who?” A whisper came from the chasm and echoed around the cave. "Who comes at last?”

  Spread-eagled against the rock, Kerish was silent.

  "Who comes . . . ? My key!" The voice cracked with anger. "You have come to steal my key, my power, my life! You shall not have it." The voice grew louder. "I will take you down into my darkness."

  From the black chasm rose two hands, whiter than the faces of the walking dead. Blindly, they groped for Kerish and the cavern was filled with desperate whispering. "My life, my key, you shall never take it!" Kerish knew that at the first betraying sound the hands would seize him and drag him down. Even now the long fingers were feeling their way along the rock face towards him. He clutched at the jewel at his breast and the whisper turned to a scream. "Light . . . give me light. Ah, pity, give me light."

  "I can't. I can't!"

  Just as the hands reached out to tear him from the ledge, Kerish woke up and found that he was crying it aloud.

  Within seconds, Forollkin was leaning over him and Gidjabolgo was sleepily demanding to know the danger.

  "I'm sorry. I was only dreaming."

  Forollkin lit one of the lamps and said, "Look, I'll leave this burning for you."

  Kerish smiled his thanks and Forollkin went back to his hammock.

  The others were soon asleep again but Kerish lay awake, staring at the blue flame of the lamp. His darkness was banished but he could not rid his mind of the agonized whisper, "Ah, pity, give me light!"

  Early the next morning the four travellers left their ship and crossed the quay, skirting the silent fountains to reach the foot of the stair. Against the black water and stone, the Starflower glowed with the vivid colours of the world beyond Roac. In the oppressive gorge it was hard to imagine that world had ever been real. Forollkin knew better now than to order Gwerath to stay behind. “Someone should stay and guard the boat...”

  “I'm going where you go,” said Gwerath.

  “What about you, Gidjabolgo? I doubt Shubeyash is the kind of sorcerer who grants wishes.”

  “My wish is not to be left alone in this cursed place.”

  “Together then.”

  Forollkin went first with drawn sword, Gwerath kept close to him. Kerish and Gidjabolgo walked side by side up the black steps.

  Half-way up, Forollkin paused to look at a relief carved on the rock face. It showed a group of children dancing around a tall figure who stooped to embrace the smallest. The inscription was in Zindaric and Forollkin read it aloud, "Those whom he protects by his might rejoice at the return of their king.' Do you think he can really have been popular in Roac?"

  "The worst of tyrants may be the gentlest of men to those they love," said Kerish. "Perhaps Shubeyash loved his subjects."

  "Or their praises," added Gidjabolgo.

  The others went on but Kerish lingered in front of the trusting children and the smiling sorcerer. As he stooped to examine the lower part of the relief, he noticed that the hem of his cloak was grey with dust though there was not a speck to be seen on the polished stairs. Even with the eyes of the Godborn he was not seeing the city as it truly was. With a pang of guilt, Kerish wondered if he was simply too afraid to look at the truth.

  "Kerish, don't dawdle. We must keep together."

  The Prince answered his brother by hurrying up the steps.

  As the travellers neared the head of the stair, they saw that the high green wall that followed the edge of the cliff curved inwards in this one place. There seemed to be a gap in the wall but as Forollkin stepped on to the summit of the cliff he realized that their way was still barred. Instead of a gateway, two huge silver hands rose out of the ground and curved gracefully inwards, their fingers interlacing, to form a shining archway.

  Slowly, the travellers approached the strange gateway. Forollkin marvelled to see every detail of a human hand, from the pores of the skin to the ridges of the nails, reproduced in burnished silver. Beyond the hands lay a courtyard paved in green and golden stone.

  "Well, this is the first entrance to the city that we've seen," began Forollkin. "Do we go through?"

  Kerish hesitated. "Yes . . . but cautiously."

  "Draw your weapons then," ordered Forollkin. "I'll go first."

  He marched beneath the silver archway, looking ahead for any sign of danger in the courtyard. Gwerath followed at his heels, glancing from side to side. She was the first to see the silver wrists quiver into life. Bars of shadow fell across her face as the fingers flexed above her. She shouted a warning and pushed Forollkin forward. He span round, grabbed her arm and tried to pull her clear but the fingers had caught her cloak. For a few moments Gwerath was tugged back and forwards. Then she got the clasp that fastened her cloak open. The cloak slithered from her shoulders as she stumbled into the courtyard, out of reach of the silver hands. The others were not so lucky.

  The fingers of the second hand had bent to enclose Gidjabolgo in a cage of flesh. He slashed at the descending hand and a liquid paler than blood gushed out to blind him. The silver palm knocked him to the ground and the fingers clenched to stop him crawling away. Kerish leapt forward and stabbed at the knuckles, exposing bone, but the hand only clenched tighter in its anger. Gidjabolgo screamed. As Kerish attacked again, the thumb of the other hand jabbed towards his back to impale him on its long nail. Forollkin's sword stroke came just in time. Gwerath stood at his side stabbing at the other fingers.

  Gidjabolgo screamed again. Forollkin ran round the clenched hand, ducked under the arched wrist and drove his sword upwards. He severed the artery and pale blood spurted out. The fingers twitched wildly and Kerish dragged Gidjabolgo out from under them. Gwerath thrust again at the other hand and leaped back as it tried to crush her between thumb and finger. Kerish and Gidjabolgo were already clear. Forollkin tugged out hi
s sword and the hand above him suddenly went limp. Gwerath pulled him away from its cold flesh as the other hand stretched towards them, straining to break free of the stones that trapped it at the wrist. The fingers sidled to and fro, like a giant silver spider. Finding Gwerath's cloak, they tore it to pieces with mindless fury.

  At a safe distance, Gidjabolgo sat gasping on the green pavement. He was badly bruised, but no bones were broken. Kerish and Gwerath were shaken but unharmed. Forollkin unwound the sash at his waist and used it to wipe the pale blood from his face and hair. There was nothing he could do about his sodden clothes.

  “Now we know never to trust a sorcerer's handclasp," gasped Gidjabolgo.

  When they had all recovered their breath they looked around them. A high green wall, broken by six slender towers, enclosed the square. From the parapet of each tower flew a standard, embroidered with the Silver Hands of Shubeyash. The same device was carved on the pillars flanking the entrance to a broad street that led into the city. Grouped around one of the pillars were four stone-masons. Their eyes were like pebbles smoothed by the sea and they struck silent blows with the mallets in their clenched hands.

  Approaching cautiously, the travellers saw that the masons were altering the blazon of Shubeyash. Above the Silver Hands, two eyes had been added and between them, only half-carved, was a third. Gidjabolgo nodded towards the street. "Do we follow that?"

  "We must find the Palace of Shubeyash," said Kerish. "The casket will be there."

  "If we climbed one of those towers, we could get a good view of the city," suggested Forollkin.

  "True, but let me go alone, " answered Kerish. "Remember the Ship of the Dead. We can't be certain how ruinous these towers really are."

  "What? Oh, I see." Forollkin absorbed this disquieting idea with a visible effort. "Well it looks like hard stone; there's no reason why it shouldn't last for centuries. We'll both go up."

  "If the steps are unsafe, I'm lighter . . . " began Gwerath and then checked herself, "but I'll stay and guard the foot of the stair."

  Forollkin thanked her with an approving smile and he and Kerish cautiously climbed the spiral staircase inside the green tower. They stepped out on to the parapet, avoiding the gleaming banner, and looked out over Tir-Roac. Spread before them were ornate towers and fantastic domes, gleaming with amber and amethyst, roofed with silver and linked by bridges slung from golden chains. The squares were paved with marble and full of statues and fountains. There were no gardens and the slow, silent figures of the dead walked the shining streets.

  Kerish and Forollkin saw that the road beginning in the courtyard below led straight towards a building that towered above the city in the shape of a crown. The outer wall was of translucent crystal patterned with vast silver hands. Through it glowed the rich emerald of an inner wall. Forollkin was still staring at the palace of Shubeyash when Kerish nudged him and pointed southwards.

  Only a short way from the palace, the city seemed infected by a leprous growth of ruin and darkness. Even as they looked, shadows fell across the brightness and Kerish felt as if someone had tugged at his hand. For a few seconds the air was full of whispering but it was gone before he could make out the words.

  Slowly the brothers descended the stair to tell the others what they had seen. With drawn swords they edged past the silent masons still intent on carving the third eye, and entered the city of Shubeyash.

  Chapter 8

  The Book of the Emperors: Sorrows

  But the young Prince said, "I will not rejoice in my death," and he denied the way of Imarko, his Foremother. "I shall stretch out my arms, not to embrace the darkness but to hold it back, until the end of my strength. Only beasts crawl into the shadows and wait for death. I am a man and I defy Her!" But the Emperor said to him, "Oh, my child, fight with your body, but in your mind let go of life while it is still precious to you. Then it will be your servant and bring you joy. Those that cling to life crush what they hold most dear and nothing but dust remains."

  The street was paved in cloudy amethyst and lined with slender trees carved in ivory with scarlet gems for blossoms. To either side, rose houses shrieking their ugly wealth with every gilded door, every rare shell pressed into the painted walls, every glittering statue. At the upper windows sat women of high rank, their shaven heads covered with nets of pearls; their hands encased in cages of filigree so that they could do nothing for themselves. The travellers stared up at a woman seated in an ebony chair. She was opening and closing her pale lips, while servants fed her from a silver dish.

  The way narrowed and Forollkin backed hurriedly to avoid a procession that had issued silently from a side street. The travellers watched it pass from amongst the ivory trees. First walked three slaves ringing mute bells. Behind them marched a group of free citizens in green and sable mantles. Their lips moved as if they were shouting and in their midst a young child was carried in an ivory chair. The men on either side of him had seized his wrists and spread out the small hands to show that the little fingers of both had been recently severed. Tears of pain still disfigured the child's face. Kerish noticed with a shiver of disgust that all the men lacked one or more fingers on each hand and guessed that it was some mark of rank or office.

  Grimly, Forollkin led them on and the soft echo of their footsteps brought a white face to each dark window. They hurried beneath an archway into a street lined with colossal statues of Shubeyash holding out his gloved hands to the tiny figures of citizens clustered at his feet. `Hands,' thought Kerish. `Always hands. Hands clinging to life and causing death.' The image of the white hands of his dream rose from their chasm to clutch at his calm.

  He felt in his tunic for the Jewel of Zeldin, remembering the darkened glass in the chamber of Elmandis and the face he had seen in its depths. "It will draw him to you." Elmandis and Saroc had both warned him. Even as he clutched the jewel, Kerish sensed a surge of power trying to reach him. Though he still saw the illusory splendours of Tir-Roac, Kerish understood now that the whole city was like a body to the dead sorcerer, a body which he strove to animate.

  As the Prince looked at the statue above him, its marble seemed to blanch and soften into skin, the stiff limbs grew supple, the feet moved a fraction on the pedestal . . .

  "No!" Kerish closed his eyes and thought of stone in all its black smoothness, its cool hardness. Stone; solid, ageless, a prison that could not be broken.

  "Kerish, what is it? You're trembling. Is there danger?"

  The Prince laid his hand on the black marble. "Not now."

  Scaffolding had been set up against the last statue in the street and masons were splintering the stone with silent blows, re-carving the face of Shubeyash. The travellers hurried past and down a flight of shallow steps that led into a huge square crowded with people.

  In the centre, stood another tall statue of Shubeyash, garlanded with flowers. Forollkin fancied that there was something wrong about its face, some curious deformity. He was glad he wasn't close enough to see it clearly. All around the base of the statue, women were dancing. They were naked except for ropes of coral; their smiles seemed nailed to their faces and their hands were caged. Hundreds of green-cloaked citizens stood motionless, with their eyes towards the dancers. To cross the square the travellers would have to move among them.

  "I can't," whispered the Prince.

  As he looked across the square, Kerish saw brittle bones, half covered by scraps of flesh and decaying rags, standing upright or moving in a slow tortured dance. He shut his eyes and sat down on the steps, trying not to be sick.

  "I would not exchange your eyes for mine," said Gidjabolgo, as Kerish fought to conjure pleasant images to banish the sight of death. He couldn't do it. Tir-Roac was too strong. Forollkin bent anxiously over him but it was Gwerath that Kerish called to his side.

  "Gwerath, will you close your eyes, take my hand and think of the most beautiful place you can remember or imagine?"

  "Why?”

  "I need to see through you
r eyes," said Kerish.

  “But I have lost my powers...”

  "And gained new ones. Please, Gwerath, picture a place and put us there beside you. Think of the sounds you would hear, the scents you would smell, the feel of the earth beneath your feet. Try, Gwerath, and you can help us all!"

  Gwerath took her cousin's shaking hands and obediently closed her eyes. Her thoughts were clouded at first with the darkness of Tir-Roac but gradually the picture in her head grew clearer. Kerish saw it in his mind's eye, in a dazzle of light as if he was looking into the sun. The Princess of the Sheyasa had pictured herself walking barefoot amongst lush grass and nodding windflowers, whose pungent scent filled the air. Watch-trees sprang up from these plains and in the distance a turquoise sea beat on a white shore. In that place, Gwerath wore a dress of roseate silk but her dagger still hung at her waist and her silver hair flowed loose. Beside her walked Forollkin with one arm around her waist. The Prince and Gidjabolgo were blurs of colour beside the sharp images of Gwerath and Forollkin.

  Kerish sat for a long time, absorbing the calm of Gwerath's vision. Forollkin complained that nothing had changed but he looked more relaxed and Gidjabolgo sniffed at the air as if he could smell something familiar. Finally, Kerish stood up, still holding Gwerath by the right hand.

  "Keep your eyes closed," he murmured. "We'll lead you across."

  He took her down the last few steps with the others only a pace behind. Fixing his eyes on the ground, Kerish wove his way among the citizens, taking care not to brush against their cloaks that now seemed made of grass. He froze once as a ripple of movement passed through the crowd. A dance was over and the citizens clapped their mutilated hands in silent applause.

  Kerish knew that Shubeyash watched their progress across the square. One after another the dead would turn and stare at him. Shubeyash looked out through their eyes like a creature trapped behind a window, desperately trying to break the glass.