The coast road waited not a quarter of a mile dead ahead, and a hundred strides beyond it shallow waves tumbled out of a dark blue sea. Scattered shafts of golden light pierced the dark cloud cover, stabbing the seascape. It beckoned like sparkling silver coins scattered on a blanket of blue-black water.
The Inland Sea.
The riders shifted in their saddles, each eager to rush forward and begin the knockabout with bang and outcry, but like seasoned performers, remained in place and studied their stage.
Awed by the immense body of the ocean, Robin sighed. “It’s so big… so beautiful.”
Brown John scolded her with his eyes, reminding her that they were not here to play a scene of awe and wonder, but one of deadly stealth and raw violence, and she nodded her apology.
They rode forward, and the tree cover siding the road thinned like parting curtains exposing bald shoreline, and an ever-widening vista of untamed nature.
The bukko had never seen bodies of earth and sky and water of such size or stark contrast. Here was a stage on which gods could roughhouse and war, where goddesses passed like mysteries behind watery veils and sunbeams. He reined up again and sighed with wonder. But no one scolded him, and the others stopped at his sides.
The dark turbulent waters and the verdant greens of tropical growth on the far shore spoke of portentous mysteries, and the black castle standing on the hunched back of the huge grey rock rising out of the sea was a chilling spokesman of imminent doom.
“That’s Pyram,” Jakar said evenly. “I saw it from the opposite shore, but there’s no mistaking it.”
The northern walls and towers were dark ruins, and tumbled roughly to the south where towers stood erect amid moats, and valiant and salient walls. They were topped by crenellated parapets, their long black bodies hiding whatever monstrosities might dwell behind them.
The rock supporting the castle was bald at the top, and descended to thickets of carob bean, cork oak and wild olive, then to carpets of heather, rosemary and lavender. Flurries of ravens, warblers and wrens swept over thicket and brush, and swooped down the sheer faces of the cliffs past bright patches of snapdragons, periwinkle and broom flowers lining the runnels in the rock.
The landscape approaching the castle was low and rugged, and swept in a crescent toward the northern end of the huge rock. A dirt road turned off the coast road, wandered through the rough ground and crossed a shallow bridge of land joining the continent to the rock. There it meandered up the gentle western slope toward the southern end of the castle, and entered it via a port of arms, an outwork which bisected the valiant wall. Flags waved on the wall, and tiny shadows moved along it, sentries of the castle garrison. But the coast road and the road to the castle were empty tongues of dark dirt waiting for something edible to suck into the teeth of the castle.
A fog was drifting out of the Inland Sea. Its tremulous body was rising in concealing mists around the base of the sheer cliffs at the north end of the rock where waves crashed at the mouths of shadowed caves. Its vaporous fingers probed at the shore, reaching as far as the coast road and promising to reach further. Above the castle, the overhanging cloud tumbled on the wind, falling in billowing folds over towers and ruins like a heavy mourning garment.
The bukko smiled with patient expectation. “We will wait for the fog to cover us.”
They dismounted, distributed the last of their water and provisions, then sat down and watched the fog roll in. When the thick mists reached all the way inland to cover their bodies so they could not see ten feet in front of them, they remounted and moved toward Pyram.
Cobra led them.
Looking warily into the dense concealing fog, Jakar said, “I don’t like it. Why should things suddenly become easy?”
“Patience, lad,” Brown John said. “We can use all the luck that comes our way.”
They traveled the length of the coast road, only passing an ox-cart and driver barely visible in the fog, and turned onto the dirt road. Crossing the narrow bridge of land, they heard distant voices high above on the battlements, but met no one. At the base of the rock, Cobra silently indicated they should turn off, and led the party through boulders to the shoreline. There they hid the horses in a shallow cove, and Brown John and Jakar strapped sword and crossbow to their backs. They crossed the base of the giant rock for nearly a mile, until they were well away from the shore and the incoming waves were drenching them, and stopped.
In front of them, forty feet of sheer cliff plunged into the turbulent surf. Slick shale. Impassable. At its far side, the waves splashed into the darkness of a small cave.
Cobra removed her cloak, raised it in a bundle over her head and moved down into the onrushing water. The others, in like manner, followed. They waded ten feet further along the base of the cliff, then had to swim the rest of the way. At the cave, waves tossed them about, and they were banged against boulders repeatedly before they made the floor of the cave. Scratched and bruised, they crawled into the shallow opening and lay gasping as they watched Robin’s cloak, which had been ripped from her grasp, toss fitfully on the frothy waters as it was slowly dragged out to sea.
The cave was wide but only three feet high, and they had to crawl through shallows of ebbing and flowing sea water to dry ground. There they wrung out their clothes, then crawled some more. They moved in the manner Cobra had instructed them while on the night trail, making as little noise as possible. The faintest click or thump of falling shale echoed deep into the dark, sinister body of the rock.
They passed through horizontal tunnels made by sea water and climbed up through vertical ones made by rain water. Vague daylight, drifting in from side tunnels, illuminated their passage from time to time, but most of it was spent, in total darkness. Nevertheless, Cobra led the way with assurance.
Brown John smiled unseen as he followed her, his hand maintaining contact with her shoulder. She had told him she had been raised in Pyram, and that as a young girl her constant dream had been to one day possess the sacred jewels. Consequently, she had spent much of her youth crawling through each tunnel and passage until she found the dungeon cell in which the jewels were held. But they had been heavily guarded at all times, and she had never seen them.
Now, as they moved deeper and deeper into the rock, Cobra’s pace became strong and quick with growing excitement.
The air became hot and humid, and Brown John and the others began to sweat and gasp. They began a long descent through a narrow tunnel, and at the bottom, a cool sea breeze wafted over them. Here Cobra stopped and turned to Brown John. Her voice was quiet but rough, almost wild with anticipation.
“We’re almost there. From here on, the passage is narrow. We’ll have to crawl.”
The bukko passed the word, and they lowered themselves to the moist rock flooring, breathing deeply.
Cobra said, “Hurry now,” and began to squirm through a ragged hole in the rock.
Brown John, Robin and Jakar followed.
Puddles of sea water shared the floor of the tunnel with them, and clusters of stinking sea urchin and tiny crabs. They were pinched and bitten, then emerged in a sizable tide pool and stood gasping with relief.
Waves crashed through a tunnel at the opposite end of the pool, their foaming spilling bodies lit by torches guttering in wall embrasures behind the ledge on which they had emerged. It spanned one side of the pool. Through the green water, they could see the whitish bottom of the pool, and a jagged hole in its floor opening onto shadowy depths. An iron-grilled door was positioned beside the hole; it was attached to chains which could pull it over the hole, sealing it. Whitish scrape marks showed in the floor where it had been recently dragged.
Robin shuddered, and Jakar and the bukko unstrapped their weapons. The group put their dry cloaks back on and followed Cobra across the ledge. An entrance tunnel opened off the ledge at the far edge. They followed it half its length and stopped, pressing their bodies into shadows.
Torches flickered at the opposite end, an
d shadowed figures passed in their light.
When the figures vanished, Cobra hurriedly led the group into a side passage. It led to a stairwell, and they ascended it, moving quickly now despite the difficulty. The stone stairs were alternately dark and illuminated by flickering oil lamps set in brass embrasures. The sounds of the ocean grew fainter and fainter far below. At the top, the stairwell opened on a horizontal tunnel. It was low and narrow and undulating, offering no view of what waited at the end.
They followed Cobra through it, almost running now, and it opened onto a large cave with dusty walls of dense black earth rising thirty feet high. Crawl holes pockmarked the curving walls, and the mouth of an arched tunnel was set high to one side. A staircase descended from it, following the curved wall, growing wider and wider, then turned into the cave, ending at its center. The staircase faced a wide polished wall of obsidian blocks. The black rock glittered with flickering orange light from a large oil lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling.
Brown John looked about uncertainly, then at Cobra. Her face was white, and her mouth hung open. She was gasping, teetering in place. Then she staggered to the obsidian wall and moved along it, mumbling incoherently, and frantically exploring it with outstretched arms and probing fingers. When she turned to him, her voice shook with heedless panic.
“It was here! I know it was! The dungeon cell was right here! Behind this wall. But it’s been sealed up!”
“Are you sure this is the right cave?” the bukko asked.
“Of course!” she gasped. “But it’s walled up!”
Brown John, Robin and Jakar shared an alarmed glance, and edged toward the wall, studying it. Sudden fear had drawn their flesh tight over their jaws, and their bodies were unsteady on feet spread well apart.
“You’re absolutely certain?” asked Brown John, not wanting to hear the answer.
“Yes! Yes!” Cobra groaned. “The door was right here!” She pounded the rock wall. “Right in the middle!”
Jakar turned to the bukko. “Let’s go, Brown. I smell a trap.”
The old Grillard lifted a hand telling him to wait. He could not bring himself to agree so quickly. He looked around again, then wished he hadn’t. The clang of iron bars rang throughout the room, and they swung around facing the sound. An iron-barred door had descended over the entrance tunnel, blocking their retreat to the tide pool. Behind it stood a small man in a breechclout, oozing fetid slime.
Robin recoiled into Jakar’s arms, and Cobra gasped, “Schraak!”
The worm man bowed in reply from behind the bars and laughed.
Cobra staggered behind Brown John and clung to his back, staring over his shoulder in shock and terror. “No. Noooooo!”
“Oh, yes,” Schraak said, and lifted a thick finger, pointing up at the top of the staircase.
Their heads lifted, and their eyes widened.
A fog was drifting out of the arched doorway at the top of the stairs and gathering against the ceiling. Then shafts of black light struck through it, and it billowed, filling the ceiling, threatening to fall on them.
The four backed up, holding each other, and bumped against the obsidian wall. Shaking her head, Cobra collapsed against the bukko.
“What’s happening?” Robin moaned. “What is it?”
“A trap,” Jakar said, as if describing nothing more startling than a stage device. “It’s all been a trap. The fog and the black cloud above the castle were put there deliberately, just like the fog we’re looking at now, to make us believe we could enter unseen.”
“But how?” Robin pleaded.
“Black Veshta,” Brown John said in a whisper, and Cobra shuddered agreement.
Robin looked at the bukko, trembling with confusion, then looked back up into the billowing fog and screamed shrilly, sinking to her knees.
Flaming eyes had appeared within the dark mist, and now the horned helmet emerged from it. It resided on the head of a huge man clothed only in a black loincloth and boots. The body seemed to be Gath of Baal’s, but the carriage was brutish and bent by demonic appetites. Beastly. The Death Dealer as the Master of Darkness had originally conceived of him, as a Lord of Destruction.
Jakar and Brown John both stepped in front of Robin protectively, their weapons ready.
A rough growl instantly ripped out of the helmet, and the beast’s body heaved, with the helmet blasting flames through the thinning mist.
Jakar and the bukko raised their arms, and the helmet’s fire speared down across the room, singeing their garments and flesh, driving them away from Robin. The flames promptly abated, and the helmet hung low between the ponderous shoulders, content to glare down at Robin with impatient hunger.
A slight figure emerged from the fog beside the dark beastman, and leaned lightly against him, supporting itself with a hand on his shoulder.
Brown John knew instantly who it was. The Nymph Queen. Tiyy. Black Veshta’s unholy high priestess. But she was also something more. He could feel it. Her powers were almost tangible in the air, and she had obviously made the fog, ordered it to gather at the center of the Inland Sea and spill out of the sky as if it were an obedient child. Only a deity could do that, and only a deity of dark intent. Black Veshta. The Dark Goddess had been made flesh, and the bukko stared in shock and wonder at her.
She was a hoyden, at once both girlishly vital and alluring and as old and dangerous as time. He had never dreamed that pure evil could be so young and charming and desirable. It wasn’t fair. Appropriately naked except for a leopard-skin breechclout and a sheen of golden oil on her supple walnut body, she carried her new powers with the same ease with which the mighty oak carries its leaf cover, and the sensual satisfaction on her face was that of the bitch cat who has mated with the lion.
She looked directly at Cobra and said, “Welcome back to Pyram, you slithering bitch. I think I’ve wanted you as much as I wanted the girl.” She laughed with childish mischief and added, “Almost, anyway.”
Thirty-Nine
CENTER STAGE
Brown John did not move or speak. He wanted to, but did not know the next line of dialogue, or if it was his to speak. Two of the principal players in his plot suddenly seemed totally out of character, and it terrified him. It was a bukko’s nightmare come to life.
Gath of Baal, his trusted friend who was the force that gave movement to the bukko’s plots, appeared to have left the cast completely. His body was present, but it looked as if it had been bent from within. There was no trace of the man he knew in its beastlike stance. It stood beside the Nymph Queen as obediently as a domesticated pet waiting to bark or kill on her command.
The nymph herself, of course, was a total surprise. Goddesses were supposed to be regal, and formal, and robed in heavy velvets. But this one was housed in the body of a coltish savage, and there was enough delicious mischief behind her bright eyes to make sin look like the only endeavor worthy of life’s trials and tribulations. If anyone doubted this, her brazen nudity would end the argument before it started, and unbuckle your belt as well.
She leaned casually against Gath, her fingers toying with his shoulder as she put two fingers inside her mouth and whistled shrilly like a child calling her pet dog.
Worm soldiers promptly slithered from the shadowed holes pockmarking the black dusty walls. They wore spare leather armor, and their umber flesh was spongy and coated with slime. Dark holes served them as ears and wrinkles as features. Several had short, curved steel blades growing from their wrists instead of hands, while others leveled crossbows at the intruders.
Brown John and Jakar moved side by side, their bodies shielding Cobra and Robin, but all four flinched with horror.
Here and there along the wall facing them the dark earth crumbled apart as something behind them pushed at it. The earth fell away and the heads of huge worms emerged. As round and thick as rain barrels. Slick with slime and coated with dirt. Kival carnivore worms, long believed extinct. Their heads wriggled free, and their scarlet necks spr
ead like hoods below jawless mouths lined with blunt, hard gums.
Schraak laughed behind the barred door blocking the tunnel to the tide pool, and Tiyy sat against Gath’s knee, chuckling as she watched her victims wince with fear.
“Come now,” she said easily, “what did you expect? That you could walk right into my castle and steal what you like without so much as a struggle?” She chuckled and added, “You’re not that foolish, are you?”
Having no answer that seemed appropriate, Brown John turned to reassure the women and found Robin staring at him. Her big eyes were as empty as slate waiting to be written on, as if she, too, were out of character, eager to play whatever role he asked her to play, but with no idea what it was.
He said, “Stay behind us,” as if he knew what he was talking about, and glanced uncertainly at Cobra.
She was slumped back against the wall, staring vacantly at Gath. Whipped. Broken. The bukko grimaced. Jakar was the only one in character. He seemed to have not only endured the rigors of the quest but grown stronger from them, and in precisely the manner the plot now called for. His smile was right where it always was, but it was suddenly far more resilient.
He winked at the bukko. “Why is it that I have the feeling this is not the kind of finish you had in mind?”
Taking courage from the young man’s humor, Brown John smiled brazenly at the creatures threatening them. “Not exactly a comedy, is it?”
“Fine by me,” Jakar replied easily. “I’m partial to tragedies.”
Brown John chuckled, and Tiyy laughed with delight. “By Bled, you did think you could get away with it, didn’t you?” She came down the steps halfway with a bouncy stride and sat down, straddling the corner of a step. She leaned forward, arms thrust down between her parted legs for support, and cocked her head like a snappish tart, studying them. Her large sloping eyes carried that confidence only given to women who are certain they will be the most beautiful creature in every room they enter.
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