by Clark Bolton
“The Hall of Monos,” Puc announced as he came to look down the stairs.
Both Puc and Tass dropped to their knees and prayed in the direction of the glow as Ich-Mek walked up to the great door behind them. As-Cheen then joined him, and together they could see there was nothing here to indicate how to open the door.
As-Cheen suddenly grabbed his arm, and motioned to their right. Ich-Mek could now see true sunlight filtering in, and several small cats walking toward him. Behind them was the chamber where he had attempted to use the pole to retrieve a scroll. The scroll he had nearly acquired still lay in the sunlight.
“Let’s see what that scroll is,” Ich-Mek suggested as he stepped that way, but As-Cheen held him back firmly by the arm.
“Speak the names,” she whispered.
“What?” he asked in confusion as he looked at the small cats approaching them – but then he saw piercing eyes looking toward them from the shadows.
He spoke the three names, but the eyes hardly twitched this time; they were staring at As-Cheen, he realized, and the cat was now stalking her. Puc and Tass came to join them, and the cat hardly glanced at them.
“Stay back!” Ich-Mek yelled as he held up his ring hand.
The cat made a slight course correction, as if adjusting to the position of the three males, still clearly intending As-Cheen as its target. “She is neither monk, nor mage,” Puc announced in a frightened voice.
Ich-Mek tried hard to think what that meant. “Tass…you’re not a monk.”
“I am, Fu-Si,” Tass assured him. “The vows I have taken…all but the final one.”
“Ahhh!” Ich-Mek exclaimed in frustration. “Puc…are you sure about this?” Ich-Mek asked as he dared to start to reposition himself in front of As-Cheen.
“The inner sanctum is forbidden to all, Fu-Si. Only dragon-mages and those in a sacred order may enter.”
The cat uttered a roar that nearly sent all of them running. It then looked about to spring, but both Ich-Mek and Tass moved to stand in front of a now crouching As-Cheen.
Ich-Mek could think of nothing else to do but levitate her up, so he pulled her slowly to him and wrapped his arm about her waist. When they began to slowly move upward, the cat complained with a loud yowl, which made them all wince. When the yowl was answered by two roars from above, Ich-Mek began to wonder if he had made the right decision.
Their ascent was painfully slow, and as Tass and Puc faded from view they began to see shadows moving among the columns and the stairs above them. Two of the large cats were, apparently, stalking them.
“Is the other one still down there?” Ich-Mek asked in a panicked voice.
“I don’t know!” As-Cheen replied as she kept her eyes focused on the shadows above them.
“Hold on to me so I can cast a spell,” he urged her.
Casting a protection spell on her, he then went back to levitating them upward. When they came near the winding stairs, a tiger appeared on them. It prepared to spring, and when it did they both twisted around to evade its fearsome outstretched claws.
There was a hissing sound as the protection spell repelled it, and they were buffeted hard, almost causing Ich-Mek to lose control of the levitation spell. The cat sailed on past them and was barely able to snag its claws on another part of the stairs. Pulling itself up, it then screamed in anger at them as they continued to climb.
PUFFFFTT!
Ich-Mek cast an energy-bolt at it, but it miraculously dodged it somehow. It then raced up the stairs, and was soon out of sight.
“Another!” As-Cheen warned. “There! On the ledge at the top of the pillar!”
Ich-Mek couldn’t see it at first, but then caught sight of a dark shadow.
PUFFFTTT!
This time the arcane-bolt hit, resulting in a yowl that nearly froze Ich-Mek’s blood. The cat leaped out of sight, and now they had no idea where either one was. They saw no signs of cats as they sailed up the face of the monolith.
“I see the striped one!” As-Cheen warned as they came into view of the tiered steps that led to the tower.
The tiger crouched and twitched its tail as they rose higher. Clearly they couldn’t exit the way they had entered the temple, so Ich-Mek continued upward. With the tiger out of sight below them, they came to the point where they could go no higher, and so they climbed onto the stairs. Seeing no sign of cats, they rushed upward toward the chamber where the scrying bowl lay.
“The black one!” she screamed.
As-Cheen was faster than he so had been ahead when she warned it was behind him. Holding up his ring so the cat could clearly see it, he got it to pause a few steps below him.
“Get ready to run!” he told her breathlessly.
The cloud spell he cast was a simple spell, hardly more than a cantrip, but it was enough to block the cat’s view of them. He then raced past her toward the ward that protected the chamber above them. Pushing the arcane forces aside, he pulled her in after him.
They waited for over a minute, too frightened to even move. Eventually they crawled backward up the few steps that led to the chamber.
Chapter 27
“Any sign of them?” Ich-Mek whispered across the room.
“No…no cats either,” As-Cheen whispered back.
He had gone through the several dozen scrolls in the chamber, again and again, to find something that would aid them. Hours had passed, he guessed, and still no sign of Tass or Puc.
The spells he had found were generally related in some way to working with documents, so he now had a copy spell, and another translating spell, an identify-languages spell, a light spell, an inscribe spell, among others. Only one so far was looking promising as a counter spell to the cats.
“This is a summons spell,” he said softly, “but it could be used to send a spirit away as well, I think.”
He laid the scroll on the maps table to take a closer look at it, and soon was shaking his head. It was far too difficult for his skill level, he realized; he could hardly understand half of the arcane-script.
“I’ll have to go down without you,” he told her sadly. “But I’ll find away…I promise.”
She shed a tear before saying, “I don’t want you to leave me.”
“I will never leave you, As-Cheen,” he replied. “Never!”
They hugged for a long time, and then he wiped his tears from his eyes and approached the scrying bowl. It showed him something once, and maybe it would again, he thought.
“Where is the key?” he asked as he peered into the bowl.
An image of the landing with the proclamation to Ustclostefey appeared. It was so clear as to be easily readable. As he mumbled his way through the proclamation to refresh his memory, he paused to look again at the name. The script was much larger than the other part, and the image of it was centered in the bowl.
“I think I may know how to open the door,” he told her.
As-Cheen nodded her head tentatively, then took his hand, and led him to the steps. He realized now he didn’t want to go, but she refused to let him turn around, and gently nudged him toward the ward.
“I want you to know something,” he said as he stared at the glowing ward. Before he could talk himself out of it he said, “I have a fiancée!”
He looked over his shoulder at her, and could see she didn’t understand. “A wife?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he replied. “I’m betrothed to Yi-La…the girl I told you about. The one whose finger I put the ring on. But I don’t lover her!” He then went back to staring at the ward to give himself courage. “I used to think I did…but…I love you. I won’t marry her, I promise.”
“You shouldn’t love a spirit, Ich-Mek,” she replied with a pout, which he saw when he turned back toward her. “Elves don’t marry men,” she added as a tear rolled down her cheek.
“I know they don’t,” he said as he turned to hug her again, and to kiss her cheek, “but dragon-mages can do anything!”
She smile
d at him through her tears, and before he started to truly cry, he turned and stepped through the ward. The shock of it brought him back to the reality of what he was trying to accomplish
“They won’t hurt me!” he promised as she watched him go.
He saw no cats when he reached the bottom step. Here the stairs winding down were empty – of cats and of people. Thinking for a moment about levitating down, he decided against it as the cats could reach him anyway. When he walked down to the point where the tiger had been, he saw it still perched there. It wasn’t crouched as if ready to spring, so he took this as a good sign, and so avoided looking at it.
The black cat never showed, and when he got to the very bottom of the winding stairs, he saw why. Here Tass and Puc were sitting cross-legged, with a very bored-looking cat guarding the stairs. The third cat he suspected he saw in the shadows, near the great door, but didn’t see a point in confirming it right now.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a monk, Tass?” Ich-Mek asked from the stairs as he smiled weakly at the black cat.
Tass looked up in surprise then lowered his head with shame. “I swore to tell no one, Fu-Si.”
“Little late for the title…Tass,” he replied.
“It was my task to secure a dragon-mage. Years were not kind on my vows.”
Ich-Mek nodded his head in understanding as he slowly slid off the side of the stairway to reach the floor. The cat swished its tail and put its ears back before finally closing its eyes.
“Come with me to the door, Puc,” Ich-Mek then suggested as he walked slowly to the gigantic exterior door.
Both monks were silent, but Puc did what he asked. He touched his ring to the Owesek seal on the door and whispered, “Ustclostefey”. Then he gestured for Puc to push.
The crack of sunlight that now outlined the door was nearly blinding. Tass came to help, and even with all three of them pushing on the door it hardly budged at all. Moments later they could hear Neeq calling to them from outside, and then his fingers reached in to help them open the door.
They struggled to get the door open enough for them all to squeeze through into the sunlight. “Get all the monks!” Ich-Mek exclaimed breathlessly to Puc. “We need to get As-Cheen out.”
A few minutes later, gongs sounded, and then hordes of monks came to stare in awe at what the group had accomplished. When the head lama arrived he was trailed by nine monks, each with a great urn upon their back. They wasted no time in pulling the great door open, which, in the end, required the force of dozens of monks.
Reshun led them in a slow procession into the temple, and down the long series of steps and landings, until Ich-Mek could see the shimmering signs of a portal again. This one was even more unsettling to look at than that of the monolith.
The land beyond the portal seemed to stretch on endlessly, with thousands and thousands of urns lined neatly in wide rows. Far in the distance was a structure, like an open-air shrine, and in it was just the hint of a figure.
“You must not look at him, Ich-Mek,” Tass warned in a whisper as he kept his eyes down. “It is Monos…guardian of the halls of the dead.”
Ich-Mek found he didn’t want to look at the figure, which seemed impossibly distant yet also closer than he would have liked. The monks began chanting louder, and then Reshun gently pushed an urn through the glimmering shield that surrounded the final landing of the stairs. The urn seemed to settle instantly into place.
“Is that the monolith?” Ich-Mek asked in a whisper when he noticed a towering edifice near the shrine.
No one answered, and the chanting grew louder as more urns were brought. It was becoming overwhelming, so he hurried back up the stairs and out into the sunlight.
“We are ready,” Neeq proclaimed to him as Ich-Mek’s eyes adjusted to the light.
Behind the monk were two dozen more, and these Ich-Mek led to the top of the stairs to rescue As-Cheen.
__________________________
“When will you wear the robes?” Ich-Mek asked Tass as they waded through the throng of people that were now overwhelming the village and the temple.
“When you are done with me, Fu-Si,” Tass replied with a grin.
“Stop calling me that…never liked it.”
When they came within sight of an inn, the three of them stopped. They were all wearing the clothes of pilgrims to try and blend in with the now thousands of real pilgrims seeking to reach the temple. The flood of visitors had started on the day following the explorers’ escape, and had increased daily for the past two.
“This way, Ich-Mek,” Tass said after they tired of watching the inn.
Tass led them to a house not far away, and here they were welcomed by the owners, who insisted on bowing often to Ich-Mek. A low table was set up for them in the interior of the house, and soon Neeq came to join them, along with several men from the village.
“You are comfortable with confronting these men, Fu-Si?” Neeq asked as they were all served tea at the table. “I see only violence resulting,” the monk warned.
Ich-Mek nodded his head. “I want to know who they are, Neeq…why they are looking for me.”
Tass then produced a strange document and laid it out on the table. Ich-Mek had been shown it before at the temple. It was a writ signed by the governor of Wa province authorizing Tass’s arrest and that of all those accompanying him. Extreme force was authorized, as was a substantial reward. There was no mention of any dragon-mages or elves.
“I have looked in the inn,” Tass admitted. “There are district officers, and armed soldiers. Also three Pus-Don with spears I have not seen the like of before.”
“Did you recognize any of the Pus-Don?” Ich-Mek asked.
“The one you know as Ont was there,” Tass replied.
“You sure?”
“Yes…I served under him in more than one Pus-Don caravan to collect students. I can’t say if he would recognize me, Ich-Mek. I made sure I was not seen.”
Ich-Mek guessed that the man would recognize Tass. Ont was a sharp man, and very loyal to the Regent. Tass belonged to the mountain tribe peoples of northern Wa province, and so was squatter than the people who lived near Key-Tar-Om. It made Tass stand out among the Pus-Don, and for that reason it seemed unlikely to Ich-Mek that Ont wouldn’t notice.
“Why isn’t my name on here?” Ich-Mek asked Neeq as he gestured toward the writ.
“They fear calling too much attention to you, Fu-Si. Remember, they fear the Emperor’s involvement, as I hope you do as well.”
“Was there an elf?” As-Cheen then asked.
Tass nodded his head and replied, “A hooded man, sitting apart from the others. The one you saw, when we watched the village from the hill. Elf…I don’t know.”
“Shu-Whet?” Ich-Mek asked with concern. “Would the Mother have sent him?”
“No,” As-Cheen replied. “Not Shu-Whet. Nom-Whet, I think.”
“Is he a snow-master?”
As-Cheen seemed to pause in thought before saying, “He desires this title…but is not one.”
Ich-Mek sat thinking for a moment, then asked about the strange spears Tass had mentioned. He was told there were three identical spears, all carried by the Pus-Don. They had a sharp-bladed tip, like any spear, but on the shaft they had a long bulbous section made of silver, Tass thought.
“They carry them for a reason, Ich-Mek,” Tass warned him.
“But you don’t know why?”
“For the dragon-mage, Ich-Mek…why else?”
“This is to be assumed,” Neeq added. “You should not think a dragon the only weapon they will apply against you.”
Ich-Mek looked around the table at the many faces, then asked in a near whisper, “Why hasn’t the governor of Wa sent a dragon?”
Neeq seemed unsurprised by the question. “The governor of Wa has more to lose here than the governor of Teng-Ju province, Fu-Si. The quantum contained the bones of his ancestors. He wishes them interred.”
“Then he wante
d me to succeed!” Ich-Mek exclaimed.
“Yes, Fu-Si,” Neeq replied with a bow. “But now he will be willing to extract his due from the Regent, as I believe the governor of Teng-Ju has done already.”
“Why do men pay to kill others?” As-Cheen interjected. “Even the Cold-Mother does not do this.”
“Forgive us, my lady,” Neeq replied. “Not all men value the lives of other men. Though in truth, I believe they do not desire the dragon-mage’s death, nor yours.”
“They chase us,” she retorted.
“To take back what is valuable to them, my lady. The student and the Daughter.”
“I’m not a student anymore,” Ich-Mek declared. “I wish to speak with Ont, if for no other reason than to ask what Regent Ober-Toss wants of me.”
“Potentially a high price to pay for an answer,” Neeq warned. “We know the Regent desires your knowledge be kept in Key-Tar-Om, and you with it.”
“Flee, Ich-Mek…” Tass advised. “Go wherever your heart takes you. Leave these men alone.”
Ich-Mek turned to look at As-Cheen, then gestured toward the pocket of her shirt. As-Cheen then reached in to pull out the large folded map she had removed without his knowledge from the temple. Laying it out on the table resulted in a deep bow from Neeq, who sat with his eyes closed for a few moments.
“You have taken this from the mage-room, my lady?” Neeq asked sadly.
“We did!” Ich-Mek quickly replied before As-Cheen could say anything.
As-Cheen then reached out across the large map to point at a far corner. “I wish to go there,” she told Neeq.
Neeq studied the map for a minute before replying, “My lady, this is across the sea. It shows only ice and mountains.” Neeq then looked to Ich-Mek. “No ship’s captain would take you there. None can claim to know the way.”
__________________________
They were surrounded by pilgrims, who crowded the streets around them. Tarps, tents, and even thatched huts had been put up all around the inn and most other areas of the large village, as temporary homes. Sellers of food, and other kinds of items visitors might want, were at every intersection.