by Джеффри Лорд
Two of the black priests, flashing knives, leaped at Blade. He took the guts out of one and slit the other’s throat with a backhand slash. By this time he saw what Ptol had in mind and knew he could not prevent it. Blade conceded reluctant admiration-Ptol might be fat, and an obscenity, but there was nothing wrong with his brain.
Ptol had his dagger at the girl’s throat. She arched against her chains, staring wide-eyed at Blade in wonder and disbelief, as shocked by his terrible figure as were the priests.
Ptol pushed his dagger point into her tender flesh and bleated at the big man who menaced him with the bloody sword.
«Stay,» Ptol howled. «Come no closer or Juna dies this moment. If I am to die so will she-I promise you that, no matter who you are. Back. Back awayl»
The girl twisted against the dagger point, screaming at Blade. «Kill him-kill this vermin. Never mind me. I am Juna, I order you to do this. Kill him-kill himl»
Blade halted and lowered his sword. For a moment it was a standoff. He wanted the girl alive, as a hostage and a source of information-the femaleness of her did not at the moment enter into it and he did not like the way Ptol was leering. Now that his first terror was evaporating the man seemed almost smug. Blade was certain that beneath the golden mast the creature was smiling in anticipation. Why?
Blade played for time, thinking hard. The chamber was empty except for themselves, the two priests he had slain and three who had fainted. The others had all fled.
That was it! The priests would bring help. Not more priests, but troops. Ptol must have had them standing by all the time. They would be Samostans, of course, the soldiers of Hectoris who wore the device of the ringed snake and the motto: A is Ister.
Blade feigned bafflement, defeat. He rested the point of his sword on the stones near the helmet, still red hot and smoking.
Blade grinned at the fat priest. In a placid tone, as though they were discussing the weather over a cup of wine, he said, «Tell me, priest, what means the legend on the shields of the Samostans? Ais Ister? The words are most strange to me.»
Ptol’s mouth dropped open. The bound girl stared at Blade and her thoughts were clear-her savior had gone mad.
The point of Blade’s sword moved an inch nearer the helmet.
Blade followed with a tremendous lie. «I know your friends have gone for help,» he told the priest. One of the men who had fainted stirred and moaned. Blade moved to kick him in the head, then returned to his place. His sword point was now only six inches from the helmet.
«I am righthand man and first captain to Hectoris,» said Blade. «I know that you wheedled a troop from him, Ptol, and that they are standing by. That changes nothing-I want the girl for my own. She is promised to me by Hectoris. I intend to have her and no misbegotten priests are going to damage her beauty until I have had my fill of it. Do you understand that, Ptol?»
Ptol’s eyes blinked behind the golden mask. He was baffled. Blade moved his sword point again. It was nearly touching the helmet.
Ptol said, «I think you lie, stranger. Your very question gives you the lie. How is it that the chief captain of Heo—
toris does not know the meaning of the legend, Ais Ister? I Act for God? How is this?»
«I am an unschooled man,» said Blade calmly. He had the point of his sword under the helmet now. The scorch of metal was in his — nostrils. Blade made a slight movement with his left hand, signaling the girl to duck, get out of the way. Her glance signaled understanding.
Ptol could not resist being the pedant, the scholar who knew all the mysteries. He kept the dagger at the girl’s soft throat, but he deepened his voice and spoke, in a voice so reminiscent of the classroom and of lectures that at any other time Blade would have laughed.
«Mmmmmmmm,» lisped Ptol, «it is possible, I suppose. The words are from the ancient and forgotten language. Only the greatest scholars can decipher and understand it. Hectoris himself, as I happen to know, lifted the mseription from the tomb of a king dead for thousands of years. Yes, it is not likely that a common soldier would-«
Blade whirled the smoking helmet on the point of his sword and hurled it at the little priest. To the girl he shouted, «Down!»
Ptol was caught off guard just long enough. In an instinctive attempt to save himself he leaped back from the throne. The girl flung herself down and to one side as far as her chains would allow. The helmet struck the throne just over her head and bounded high in the air. Blade was after it, covering the ten feet in one great bound, howling for Ptol’s blood.
One of the priests chose that exact moment to regain consciousness. He moved and flung out an arm with a groan. The arm struck Blade’s leg and tripped him. Blade, cursing, went to his knees. He recovered almost instantly, but Ptol was running past him, squealing like an animal about to be sacrificed. Blade regained his balance and lunged fiercely with the sword, wanting with all his heart to kill Ptol. The priest screamed and thrust out both hands, twisting his porcine body away from the slashing steel.
Blade’s sword severed Ptol’s right hand. The priest screamed again, clutched at the gushing stump and kept running. Blade turned back to the throne. Too much time had been wasted already. Time to be gone.
The girl shrank away from him as he approached. She tried to cover her bare breasts with her hands. Blade shook his head, unspeaking, and set about freeing her. This was no time to set about fathoming feminine quirks-the fact was that she was as terrified of him, or nearly so, as she had been of Ptol and his black executioners. Figure thatl
The chains were padlocked behind the throne. Blade found the long-handled tongs and thrust them into the hasps and twisted. At first the locks were stubborn, then he began to lose his temper-it was very short at the mo ment-and his biceps writhed, huge snakes of muscles, as he grunted and sweated. The locks burst asunder and the chains fell away. The girl remained huddled on the throne, staring up at what to her could only have been a fearsome apparition bloody, sweaty and begrimed, dark visaged and bearded and in a terrible temper.
Blade put his hands on his hips and glared at her. He could hear armed men in one of the passages, coming toward them. Another of the slumbering priests moved and groaned. Blade kicked him, thus venting some of his feelings, and turned back to the girl. She was standing now, trying to conceal both her breasts and her pubic area, although she obviously lacked a hand to do so successfully.
He began to bellow at her. «Do not stand and stare at me like some stupid cowl I am a stranger and know nothing of this place. It is you who must lead us out-and quickly, too, or we are both dead. Come on, womanl You are supposed to be a goddess? We both know better than that, but you must know the way to safety. How do we get outside this city, beyond the walls, into the marshes? Think, woman, and speak. Hurryl»
Her nose was straight and pert, her mouth wide and sensuous, her huge eyes gray with a violet tinge. She stared at him in fear and doubt. He kicked the still smoldering helmet and hurt his big toe. She laughed and her expression changed.
«Yes. I know a way. My people are waiting for me. You-you promise not to harm me?»
Blade had been through much. He stank of a sewer, he had numerous small hurts, every sense warned him that new dangers were fast approaching. He strode toward her. She quailed and shrank away, forgetting to cover herself. Blade smacked her hard across her firm white buttocks with the flat of his sword. The steel left a scarlet blazon on the tender flesh.
It was what was needed. She forgot her terror and spat at him, tried to claw at his eyes. Blade caught her up like a child, her fragrant breasts touching his faqe as he tossed her over his shoulder. He smacked her again, lightly, with the sword.
«Show me the passage,» he rasped. «Show me it and then keep your tongue quiet or I will still it for you. Which one to your people and the marshes, woman?»
She pointed to where a torch guttered over a dark entrance. «Yonder. You must go carefully. There is a fake turning and a secret stair, and a pit for the unwary. Listen to
me carefully-heed every word or we will die in there.»
Blade adjusted her weight on his big shoulder, one bare arm between her sleekly fleshed thighs. He shifted the sword to his left hand. As they reached the tunnel entrance there came a great outcry behind them. Blade swiveled for a moment to see armed men pouring into the chamber. They bore the circled snake on their shields and leading them, supported by two of his black-robed brethern, was Ptol. Blade cursed. Who would have thought the little fat priest so hard to kill.
Ptol saw them and waved his bloody bandaged stump. «After them-after them! A full basket of gold to the man who slays the big demon.»
Blade ran, the scented flesh of the girl jouncing on his shoulder. So now he was a demon-the reputation might stand him in good stead. And now, also, he had a goddess on his hands. Or, rather, on his shoulder.
She whispered in his ear. «Just ahead you will see where the passage appears to turn right-look you sharply and you will find a false wall. Behind it the tunnel turns to the left and down a steep stair-beware of the pit at the foot of the stairs.»
Blade grunted and ran on. Two small hands crept around his neck and locked there. Her cheek was soft against his shoulder.
CHAPTER 5
Four days passed. In this time Richard Blade wrought a miracle. He brought Juna and her retinue-old men and women, children, ladies in waiting, four emasculates whose former duties included guarding the lady in her bath, and one stout young lad for whom he had some hopes-over a hundred miles of desolate and treacherous salt marsh. He bullied and begged, threatened and cajoled, had at times beaten them, at times carried some of the children and old women and in the end. had come to the wild coast with a loss of only four.
He pitched a rude camp in the dunes, near where a row of tall and weirdly convoluted stones followed the surf line. These were the Singing Stones and it was here that Juna had guided him. Juna had sent a messenger to the Isle of Patmos, asking for help, and it was to the stones that the help would come, if it came at all. Blade was not sanguine.
Juna-Blade still called her so, and so thought of her, though she was no goddess to him-avoided him as much as possible. She kept her gaggle of servants and eunuchs and ladies close about her and, now and again, sent him imperious commands by messenger. Blade usually ignored the messages, scowling or laughing as the mood took him, but on occasion they caught him in particular ill humor and he booted an eunuch or two back to her goddessship.
Blade squatted on the sand, accompanied by the youth, Edyrn, and listened to the eerie skirling of wind through the Singing Stones. They did sing, in a way, an eldritch tirl of sound, a high threnody as the never ceasing wind blasted through the holes and crevices in the tall standing rocks. The constant wail was beginning to get on Blade’s nerves. He glanced at the gray, sullen sea and scowled. Several times, when the mist and scud lifted, he had spotted sails out there. One sail, glittering in a rare shaft of sun, and borne the snake with its tail in its mouth. Samostan ships. Waiting, Blade guessed, for a change in the weather. For days now it had been miserable, with the surf running too high to risk a landing. He kept his little company concealed in the dunes as best he could, for what it was worth. That was not much. As soon as the weather changed they would corn6 in and kill or capture them all.
Blade had an inkling of what might lie in store for him. By now Ptol, unless he was dead of his wound, would have told Hectoris of Blade. The leader of the Samostans would be curious and Blade could guess at the orderstake the big stranger alive.
Right at the moment Blade was not too concerned-his stomach was knotted and gnawing. He had had his fill, forever, of roots and swamp berries. He was conjecturing on the possibility of catching fish when the lad beside him pointed with his lance and spoke, «Yonder comes the hag, sire. She who is called Kron. She has been listening to the stones and comes to make a prophecy, I wager.»
Blade nodded grumpily. Edyrn was a good lad and, at the moment, Blade’s right hand. He had honest blue eyes and a flaxen poll and knew how to handle a sword and lance. He was short and bandy-legged, but well muscled and something of a favorite with Juna’s ladies. There was something of a mystery as to how Edyrn had become attached to the party, but Blade did not press it. The boy had brains and he was loyal-so far, at least-and Blade looked no further. He badly needed a lieutenant, a man who could understand and carry out orders, and Edyrn was the only such person available.
At the moment Blade was in no mood to talk to a crazy old woman. He pointed his sword at the ancient figure making her way so painfully toward them and nodded at the boy. «Go see what she wants, Edyrn. Keep her away from me. I have more important things to do than listen to tales told by stones-chiefly to get some fish from this ocean so that, when and if, help comes from Patmos we will be strong enough to board ship. Not that I put much faith in that tale, either, for I cannot see how ships from Patmos can break through the Samostan coast patrol. Go, boy. Leave me to think on matters.»
Edyrn went off to do as he was bid. Blade scratched his ragged black beard and watched with a grim smile as the boy took the old woman’s arm and led her away. She went under duress, hanging back and wailing and pointing again and again at Blade.
He forgot her and went back to gazing at the sea. He scratched again. He had bathed in the sea, and so gotten rid of many layers of sewer slime, but now he itched intolerably. He scratched and listened to the wail of the wind in the stones and thought that they could make a net of rushes and so catch enough fish to keep from starving. He did not fear attack from the rear-Hectoris had not bothered to send troops, either foot or cavalry, into the marshes after the little party. Possibly the Samostan chief had reckoned on the marsh, the quicksands and the snakes and insects and wild animals doing the job for him.
There came a momentary break in the mist. Blade, who chanced to be staring straight out to sea, saw the flicker of a sail. That, the coastal patrol set up by the Samostans, was no accident. Blade doubted that Hectoris had thought of it himself. Ptol. The fat priest. Blade had bilked him, cheated and humiliated him and cut off his hand in the bargain. Blade had snatched Juna from the fiery helmet-there had been times during the past four days when he had had second, and dubious, thoughts about that-but he had done it and Ptol was still alive. He had not seen the last of Ptol. Blade, amid the desolation of sky, sea, sand and marsh, cursed himself heartily. He should have killed the little bastard when he had the chance. But for sudden misadventure, the other black robe flinging an arm and tripping him-Blade jabbed his sword fiercely into the sand. No use crying over blood that had not been spilled. He must pull himself together. Get matters organized and moving again. He had a mission, a duty to perform, and so best get on with it.
Again, as he had many times in the past few days, he pushed back the thought that he would not greatly mind, would in fact welcome, the head pains that presaged a return through the computer to Home Dimension. He roused himself, stood up and stretched his massive limbs. He did not like the way he felt-it bordered on shirking duty, even on disloyalty and, if you stretched it a point, treason. Yet there it was. His heart was not in the mission; over him there hung a strange lethargy and, name it, fear! He did not understand it at all-yet knew it was unhealthy, could be fatal, and something must be done at once. What he needed was action, to be rid of his role of nursemaid to women and eunuchs and a beautiful, and impossible, female who still thought of herself as a goddess.
He thought of Nob and could grin. There was a man he could have used. The words came unbidden to his lips and he flung them into the scouring wind. «By Juna’s tits, Blade, snap out of it. Do what you must do and stop feeling sorry for yourself!»
He felt better already. Edyrn found him smiling when he returned with the message from old Kron. Blade still smiled, but he listened. He had been making mistakesmistakes he must not repeat. He had been forgetting that he was in Dimension X, where anything was possible.
The message sent by Kron, that ancient witchlike creature, was crypti
c. Edym, his blue eyes wide with wonder and something of awe, repeated it word for word.
«The singing stones have sung to me and on the winds there came these words-seek you on the sands for him who was sent but did not go. Seek for the house that contains a message that will not be delivered. Seek not far from here a new house, built of bone from the old, and now inhabited by clawed things. Seek this and find this and you shall also find doom and hope. The stones are silent. .»
Blade listened carefully. He made Edyrn repeat it three times. Blade ran his big fingers through his black jungle of beard and shook his head. «I make no sense of it, lad. Do you?»
Edyrn, in turn fingering the silky down on his cheeks, likewise shook his head. «None, sire. But it must have meaning-old Kron has been future-sayer to Juna since Thyme was only a village of mud in a desert march. She has more years than she can remember and she is never wrong. There is truth in her words if we can but fathom it, sire.»
Blade nearly said, «Bah-humbug,» or a more profane version of the same, but remembered in time his promise to himself. He was in DX. Very well. Act like it.
«Fetch me the goddess Juna,» he told Edym. «I wish to see her at once. Here.»
Edym was back in a few minutes. «Juna sends her greetings, sire, and-«
Blade exploded. «I did not send you for her greetings! Where is she?»
The lad shrank from the blast, retreating a pace. But he spoke up bravely enough. «Juna says she cannot come to you. She is no servant to be summoned thus. She commands, if the matter be really important enough, that you come to her. She hopes that it is important-she is with her ladies now and does not wish to be disturbed for a trifie.»
Blade opened his mouth, then closed it. He narrowed his eyes at Edym. The boy took another step back and waited, flinching visibly. But when Blade spoke his tone was calm.