Pearl Of Patmos rb-7

by Джеффри Лорд

  She lay down on the catafalque once again and extended her arms to Blade. «Now come lie with me and you shall hear.»

  Blade was moving as though in a dream darkly; the potion removed him one step from reality, slightly blurring the focus of things, and gave him a deep sense of inner contentment and a desire to please Izmia, to do whatever she asked.

  Izmia enfolded him in her arms as if he were a babe. Her body was cool and warm at once, and she pillowed his head on her naked breasts and whispered of what he must do. Blade listened, half drowsing, and understood and knew that it must be this way and no other.

  When she had finished Izmia held him a moment longer. She kissed him on the lips and, for a moment, there was warmth and life in the golden eyes once again, then it vanished and her eyes grew blank.

  «Come now,» she whispered. «It is time.»

  She took his hand and led him to yet another cavern. It was small and cold and dank. In its center, like a baleful eye, was a dark pool. The black water, smooth as taut velvet, promised an inky coldness and depth that set the big man to shivering. And yet he was not afraid. It must be done.

  Izmia stood unspeaking as Blade stripped off his armor and his heavy sword and belt. When he stood naked at the edge of the pool, she came to him and touched him lightly here and there and her smile was sweetly sad and Blade knew that this was the real farewell. Her hands lingered on him for another moment, then she stepped back and nodded toward the pool.

  «Go, Blade. I have explained. You have one chance. You will triumph or perish.»

  In the gloom of the little cavern her body shimmered like heat lightning. Blade gave her a long look, took a deep breath, and went headfirst into the pool.

  He made his way down through black ice. His eyes were open to no avail-the darkness was total. This was a place that had never known light. It was narrow, little more than a well, and at times he brushed the sides of cold stone.

  Blade went down and down and down. There was no bottom. The first faint pains began in his lungs. The pressure was a dark hand crushing him. Down-downdown—

  No bottom ever. He was diving into eternity.

  Pain growing now. Flame in his lungs. Soon it would be unbearable. Still he swam downward. And down-and down—

  Bottom.

  His fluttering hands encountered them immediately. The sword and the pearl. Just as Izmia had said they would be-waiting for him all the aeons long.

  The pearl was the size of a billiard ball and filled his hand with chill convexity. The sword was long and cumbersome and immensely heavy. Blade grasped them and kicked his way upward. Straight into the slimy coils. lzmia had not warned him of this thing, whatever it was, that held him now. Serpent, ‘monstrous worm, water dragon, whatever it was, it had him in a firm grip and the coils were multiplying and tightening all the while. The more Blade fought, the harder he struggled, the deeper he became enmeshed. His lungs, already screaming for air, began to collapse under the terrible squeeze the creature exerted.

  For a moment Blade panicked: Fear screamed and shivered through him. Not so much fear of death, or pain, as of the unknown terror of the moment-this loathsome beast that he could not see, this great leechlike nightmare attached and sucking and squeezing at his body. His arms were bound tight into the coils and he could not draw the sword and pain was raving in his brain.

  One of the thick coils slipped across his mouth. Blade, without thought, knowing only that this was his one chance, fastened his strong teeth in the-rubbery flesh and bit with all his might. He bit and chewed and ravaged like a wolf feeding. The flesh in his mouth was foul and bitter, noisome and stinking, and yet he felt the thing shudder and the coils relax a bit. Blade, near to being a mindless thing himself now, ravened.on. He savaged the flesh of the thing.

  The coils fell away. Blade shot toward the surface, still clutching the sword and the pearl.

  Izmia was not there. Blade had known she would not be. She had explained it all to him. He dragged himself out of the pool and lay gasping for a few minutes, then donned his armor and his sword and belt. There was no cause for hurry now. Izmia would wait.

  When he had dressed and fully recovered he examined the sword and the pearl. The sword was broad and long, handsomely sheathed in a scabbard that glistened with jewels, and when he drew the steel it glimmered and glistened as though it were from the forge. Blade put the point on the floor and held the sword away from him. The hilt came to the level of his chin.

  The pearl was as black as the pool from which it had come. It glowed with dark fire. Blade stroked it with his fingers and it seemed to throb and come alive, to take warmth from his body, to glisten and respond and almost breathe. He hefted it again and again in his hand and regretted the eventual use to which he must put it. It was, on closer inspection, larger than a billiard ball and he knew he’would never see its like again in any dimension. For a moment he regarded both pearl and sword intently, then sighed anti went back to the larger cavern where Izmia awaited him on her catafalque.

  She slept. Blade stood by the catafalque, gazing down at the naked beauty of her, dreading what he must do. But he bad vowed and it must be done. He put the sword on the catafalque beside her and placed the great black pearl in the cabinet with the chalice and the wine. He came back and picked up the sword.

  Her flesh was all shimmering flame, the marvelous breasts rising and falling with her slow breath. Her features, in repose, appeared to have shrunken, to have pinched together, and the facial flesh had taken on such a translucence that Blade could have sworn he saw the skull. Slowly Blade raised the sword.

  The drug was strong in him, enforcing his will rather than sapping it, giving him a slow and blurred determination. He must do everything exactly right, exactly as he had been instructed. There was no tremor of his hand as he lifted her left breast to place the point of the sword exactly. Her flesh was cold, yet seared his hand, and it was all he could do to keep from snatching it way. He positioned the sword point, then leaped onto the~catafalque and stood astride her.

  At that moment the golden eyes flickered open and stared up at him and Blade stared down into a volcano where amber sparks swirled. He grasped the sword hilt firmly in both hands and bore down with all his strength.

  Izmia arched and screamed once. Her body writhed, embracing the sword as though it were a steel phallus and she smitten with death desire. Blade, made impassive by the drug, drove the sword through her and into the catafalque beneath. His face contorted and sweat streamed from him and he was unknowing of this. He bent to his task. His massive biceps bulged and quivered as he forced the sword lower and lower, driving it deeper into the catafalque, until the hilt rested on her breast.

  His face was close to hers and he saw the beginning of it. Her eyes closed and he saw peace, calmness and tranquility, invade her features like a conquering angel. Her lips fell away from her teeth in a rietus that was more smile than grin and then a kind of ecdysis began and her flesh ceased to shimmer and turned a dull gray. Blade tugged out the sword and leaped from the catafalque to stand beside her. He was only dimly aware of his own sobbing breath.

  He watched, bound fast by the web of drug, as Izmia’s flesh aged before his eyes. She had been-so she had whispered-an old, old woman and now her flesh, freed from whatever necromancy had held it in thrall, spoke the truth at last. It did not take long.

  When the body that had been Izmia became a eronething, a bag of wrinkles and bones, Blade picked it up and left the cavern. He found a door she had said would be there and followed the path laid out for him. He stalked along, not hurrying nor lagging, clutching the thing to his breast, and in a few minutes came out on the stone platform overlooking the maw of the volcano. Had it been light he could have seen the tower room where he and Edyrn had plotted their battle, and from which he had first spied this very platform. He approached the edge and stared down into the reeking mouth. A thin sulfuric mist drifted up to choke and half blind him. In the far depths a tongue of flame leaped
up and outward from the walls, as though in signal, then retreated.

  Blade lifted the body, as light as a feather pillow now, and hurled it out and down. Again flame licked and smoke roiled and Blade raised his hand in farewell. He stalked back,the way he had come. As he left the Cavern of Music ais head began to clear, the drug faded, and though he had perfect recall of everything he felt no pain, nor regret, but rather the sense of a thing well and rightly done.

  He went to his own cavern and threw himself on the bed and slept like a babe. When Nob woke him, half an hour short of dawn; Blade felt refreshed and confident and ready for whatever the day might bring. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and grinned at the one-eyed rascal.

  Nob handed him a cup of steaming broth and reported that the counter-raid had gone well.

  «A dozen horses taken, master, and some fifty Samostans slain. We lost but twenty of the Guard. We took more than a hundred prisoners, but I gave them your message and released them as you ordered. They will make their way back to the beaches and spread the word. I am sure of it.»

  Blade finished the broth and beckoned for his armor. «That is good, so far. But it is not enough-all the Samostan army must know of my challenge. You have put your beggars and thieves to work?»

  «Aye, I have, sire. I have made loud hailers, of paper as you instructed, and my knaves are all up and down the beaches, on the cliffs, everywhere, shouting your words to those who may come ashore.»

  Nob scratched his jaw. «I was not of your mind at first, master, for I have never seen a battle won with words, but now I begin to think it might work. Certainly it is clever enough-as a soldier myself I know that a soldier does not want to die unless he must. He will take an easy and painless victory every time or, lacking that, he will even choose defeat with honor. Either is better than dying. Yes, master, it just might work. You prey on their weaknessone we all have-a desire to live.»

  Blade nodded slowly. «We will see,» he said gravely. «If Hectoris is as vain, and as proud and,brave as he is said to be, then it will work. But there is an irony here, Nob-if Hectoris is a coward we are lost.»

  CHAPTER 11

  Dawn broke as Blade rode northward. A bloody sun, wrapped in mist, was a harbinger of weather to come. Nob, riding on Blade’s left-Edyrn rode on his right side-cocked his good eye at the eastern horizon and opined, «A sky like that means but one thing, master-a gale before dark. And gales are fearsome things in Patmos. I have lived through one or two and I know.»

  Edyrn looked at Blade and nodded in agreement. «It may be that a gale, if it comes, will do our work for us. If the Samostan fleet is broken up and driven ashore piecemeal the Guard will be able to handle them.»

  Blade.said nothing to this. He was prepared to welcome a storm, but only after he had confronted Hectoris. Not much good in killing the little serpents if you let the big one escape.

  He was riding a fine black stallion shod with bronze and bearing scarlet equipage. Nob himself had slain the officer who rode it, and had marked the horse for Blade at once. Edym rode a mettlesome gray and Nob a brown hack of enormous size. The other captured horses had been distributed among the Guard officers.

  Two miles south of the harbor the land began to slope down to the sea. There were no cliffs or natural obstacles here, the terrain forming a shallow bowl that ended in long wide beaches of powdery sand. It was a natural spot for invasion and Blade had carefully left it undefended, gambling that the positioning of his other defenses, both real and faked, would exert pressure enough to channel the attack to North Harbor. The harbor, with its superb beaches, was the funnel through which he wished the Samostans to attack. It was true that he had not foreseen a gale, and that the harbor would give the Samostan fleet more protection than he cared to extend, but you could not have everything. In any case it did not really matter. If he could not bring Hectoris to private combat, no gale, nor indbed anything, was going to save Patmos.

  Nob’s one eye was sharp. He pointed to a moving cloud of dust on the horizon. «Cavalry, master. They’ve put another scouting party ashore.»

  Blade held up a hand and the column halted. He had taken a third of his reserves from the volcanic area camp and they were strung out behind for a half mile in a column of fours. Blade stared at the oncoming war party.

  «How many do you make their, Nob?»

  But it was Edyrn who answered. «Some hundred horse, sire. And they have seen us.»

  Blade nodded and gave orders. Four of the mounted officers went galloping back along the column. The other mounted officers, with Nob and Edym, grouped around Blade. The black, sensing combat, began to curvet nervously. Blade gentled the animal by pressure of knees and hands and said to Nob; «They are going to attack. Fair enough, for we face a test sooner or later. If we give a good account of ourselves it will win respect. But do you slip off, Nob, and bring me word of affairs at the harbor beaches. See how our word war is progressing, for if we are to have a chance we must be at the beaches before Hectoris is ashore in strength. Go at once.»

  Nob scowled. «Aye, master, but I will miss the fighting if I go now.»

  Blade scowled. «Go, man! This moment.»

  The man grumbled but he went, riding off to the left flank under cover of a shallow ridge. Blade pulled his steed around and nodded at Edyrn. «Let us get into.the square. They will be on us soon enough.»

  The Guards, by marching left and right flank, had completed the formation of a hollow square. The ranks parted to let Blade and his officers ride in, then closed in again. Blade leaped to stand on his saddle and study the formation. He nodded in approval at what he saw.

  The files were three deep. First a rank of kneeling men with long cruel pikes, then a rank of javelin throwers and last a rank of bowmen. All of them, in addition to their special weapons, carried short heavy swords and daggers. Inside the square, near Blade and the other mounted men, was a small party of slingers now engaged in counting and grading their jagged lava rocks. Blade looked them all over, and sighed. If only he had more of them! If only he were not so hopelessly outnumbered he would have risked a pitched battle with the Samostans and forecast victory: But wishes did not make it so. He must stick to his original plan.

  The Samostan cavalry by now were deployed in a crescent before Blade’s square. Trumpets shrilled and banners fluttered, but they did not attack.

  Edyrn touched Blade’s arm. «They want a parley. Yonder comes Lycus, their commander. I know something of him-a cruel man and a skilled warrior. Shall I order the slingers and bowmen to open fire? If we kill Lycus they may leave us alone.»

  Blade shook his head. «No. I do not want them to leave us alone. I must see,how your Guard fights and now is good a time as any-and I have use for this Lycus. Pass the word that he is to be left to me. To me alone!»

  Edyrn looked puzzled, one of the few times he had done so, and rode off to execute the order. Blade spurred nearer to the ranks and watched a burly horseman leave the Samostan line and gallop toward the square. He held up both empty hands to signify peace and reined in just short of the line of pikes. Blade rode toward him, the black prancing and skittering as it threaded through the ranks. One of the bowmen, sighting his weapon, grinned up at Blade as he passed.

  «Let me have a shot, sire. I can bring him down from here, or you may skin me else.»

  Blade smiled and shook his head. «Later-later. I will fill your craw with fighting.»

  The Samostan officer called Lycus stared curiously at

  Blade as he cantered up. Blade returned the stare with in terest. This Lycus was a powerfully built, thick-chested brute. His helmet, with its nose and ear guards, boasted the long blue feathers of Samosta. The shield on his left arm bore the snake with its tail in its mouth and the le, — , Ister.

  I Act for God. Blade’s lips quirked in a half smile-he hoped to test that theory in reverse. Would the god of Hectors act for him.

  Lycus sat easily in the saddle, one foot out of the stirrup and da
ngling. His right hand rested lightly on his sword hilt. He showed his teeth like a wolf as Blade rode up.

  «You are the stranger called Richard Blade?»

  Blade met the cold stare with one of his own. «I am. What is your business? Why do you parley instead of fight?»

  The man’s chest armor strained as he bent to laugh. «I’ll fight you, never fear. Unless you are a coward, or a more reasonable man than I have heard, and heed the message I bring you.»

  «What message?»

  «From my master, Hectoris himself. He has great admiration for you, Blade, but is no friend. You must understand that-I make no false pretenses. But any man who can thwart him as you have is of interest to Hectoris. He wishes to meet you.»

  Blade smiled faintly. «And I him.»

  Lycus fingered a lantern jaw. «Then it is simple enough.» He gestured at the Guard in its square. «Disband your men. Let them surrender their arms. They will be well enough treated. And cease all destruction in Patmos, for it is this which angers Hectoris most-he does not want to. conquer a desolated country. You will be treated as an honored guest as long as you choose to remain and there will be high office for you if wish to serve Hectoris. Izmia, she who is called the Black Pearl, will keep her suzerainty and all close to her will be favored. She will still be spiritual ruler of Patmos and her caverns will be respected as sacred to her.»

  Blade nodded. «And who will actually rule Patmos? The traitor King and Queen-Kador and Smyr? Or perhaps Juna?»

  He had little doubt that this Lycus had been sent to seek him out and strike a bargain. Hectoris did not want to fight unless he must. Blade glanced at the sky. It was looking more ominous by the moment.

  The Samostan officer saw Blade’s glance and must have gathered its meaning, but he said, «Kador and Smyr have been executed. They were traitors, sure enough, and plotted against Izmia, but they made a botch of it. Their plans were known to Izmia all along, and they could not even hold you captive. Hectoris does not abide bungling.»