Vakar nodded.
"I have composed a beautiful method of doing so, except that it requires the help of a strong man of more than common hardihood. Briefly, it is this: my rival Nichok lies most of the time in a trance while his soul goes forth to explore the world in space and time. If I could possess myself of his body while he is in one of these trances, I could seal it against the reentry of his soul, and by threatening to destroy this body I could force Nichok's soul to divine for me as long as I wished."
"You wish me to steal this body for you?"
"Precisely."
"Why me?" said Vakar warily.
"Because the men of Torrutseish are so imbued with fear of us of the magical profession that none would dare let himself be involved in such a coup-de-main. Moreover your slave has, I believe, some authentic knowledge of the theory and practice of larceny and could help you."
"Suppose that fear is well founded?"
"It is, to a degree. But this task, while admittedly dangerous, is by no means hopeless. Were I Nichok I could give you the precise odds on your success. As it is I can tell you that they are no worse than pursuing a wounded Hon into its lair. As your friend Qasigan will not arrive in Torrutseish before tomorrow night, you have ample time."
Vakar stood silently until Kurtevan spoke again: "There is no likelihood of my reducing my demand, young man, so make up your mind. Either make this attempt or go elsewhere for means to thwart the Gorgons."
Mention of the Gorgons gave Vakar the extra push needed to make up his mind. If Qasigan were indeed a Gorgon, then Söl's story of the Gorgons' impending descent upon his homeland was true.
"I will try," he said. "What must we do?"
"First you must wait until dark and go to the tower of Nichok. It is much Hke this one but smaller, and across the city—I will give you a map."
"How do I get in?"
"There is a secret entrance that even Nichok does not know."
"How is that?"
"For the simple reason that I built his present tower, and sold it to him when I erected this edifice fifty years ago. Now, when you have entered his tower by the secret entrance, you will find a trap-door, and underneath the trapdoor a ladder leading down to the underground chamber where lies the body of Nichok. My arts tell me he is not lying completely unprotected; he has summoned a guardian from some other plane of existence, though its precise nature I cannot ascertain."
"Hum, How shall I cope with this guardian? An armed man I can take a chance with, but some ten-armed demon from another universe ... What am I supposed to do when I cut at the creature and my sword goes through it like smoke?"
"Do not let that concern you. Things from other worlds and planes, if they would dwell in our world, must obey the laws thereof. Therefore if this guardian is sufficiently materialized on this dimension to harm you, by the same token it must be equally vulnerable to your attack."
"Well, if Nichok's soul is wandering about, how do you know it is not eavesdropping on us now?"
The wizard smiled. "Every dog is invincible on its home ground. For one thing all openings in my tower are sealed with the juice of rue, garlic, asafetida, and other spirit-repellants. But come; it will be another hour before full darkness, and you must be hungry. Sup with me and then set out upon your task."
Kurtevan clapped his hands. The headless servitor appeared and set out two stools and a low table. At least a headless servant appeared; Vakar realized that without faces to go by it was almost impossible to tell whether this were the same gatekeeper or not. He said:
"You have unusual servants, Master Kurtevan. Do you find them more obedient without heads? What is the creature?"
"A gift from the lord of Belem. Do you know Awoqqas?"
"I have heard sinister rumors of the land of Belem, that is all."
"King Awoqqas has found a method of reanimating a freshly decapitated corpse by constraining a certain type of spirit of the air to animate it. If the operation is performed carefully so that the body is prevented from bleeding to death, the wound can be healed and a servant created who is more docile than any whole man. Its only disadvantage compared to a whole man, like yours, is that with that single eye in his chest it cannot look up or around. Awoqqas has a whole army of these izzuneg, as they are called in the language of Belem, and if your travels should take you thither I am sure you could persuade him to convert your slave to an izzuni."
"An interesting idea," said Vakar, "but I must take Fual's feelings into account. Being very sensitive he might not like the loss of his head."
"Ahem. You see," continued Kurtevan, "there are three schools of thought regarding the location of the intelligence: that it resides in the head, or in the heart, or in the liver. Now Awoqqas appears to have proved the first-named correct. Lacking a brain, there is no likelihood that the memories and thought-patterns that the acephalus had as a whole human being will be reanimated along with the rest of the organism, and perhaps interfere with the control of the body by the sylph ..."
The thin old wizard became almost animated as he discussed magical theory. Vakar, despite Kurtevan's callous disregard for other human beings, became so absorbed that he almost forgot the peril ahead of him. Fual continued to quake. But when the food arrived, Vakar said:
"I trust you will not deem me unduly suspicious, but do you swear by your magical powers that this food contains nothing harmful—no drug or enchantment that might affect us at any time?"
Kurtevan smiled crookedly. "Old Ryn taught you well. Of course even the most wholesome food can be harmful if eaten in abnormal quantities—"
"No quibbling, please. Do you swear?" For Vakar knew that if a magician swore falsely by his magical powers these powers would at once leave him.
"I swear," said Kurtevan, and addressed himself to his plate. "Does this convince you?"
-
The tower of Nichok stood black against the stars. Although Kurtevan had said that it was smaller than his present keep, it loomed larger in the darkness. Vakar and Fual leaned against the wall surrounding the tower, listening. They had left their cloaks and satchel at Kurtevan's so as not to be encumbered more than was necessary.
Something moved around inside the wall, though the sound was not that of human footsteps. There was a curious shuffle and a scaly rattle about the sound, and something breathed with a hiss that was almost a whistle.
A light showed in the distance.
"The watch!" said Fual, convulsively gripping Vakar's arm.
"Well, don't twist my arm off. Remember what he told us."
In accordance with Kurtevan's instructions, both men put their backs to the wall and froze to immobility. The wizard had thrown a glamor over them so that so long as they remained still the watch would simply not notice them; they were for practical purposes invisible.
The watch—a group of eight citizens holding torches and with staves and zaghnals over their shoulders— tramped past. Vakar caught a muttered comment about the price of onions, and the group swung by, never looking towards Vakar and Fual. When the watch had passed out of sight, Vakar led Fual silently back to the place where they had been listening.
"Six paces from the gate," he breathed, "and two feet from the wall .... Fual, your feet are smaller than mine, more like those of a Euskerian. Put them one behind the other ..."
Vakar marked the spot with his toe and began digging in the dirt with his fingers. When the ground proved too hard he attacked it with the blade of his knife, going round and round in an increasing spiral from the spot where he had started, and also deeper and deeper.
Once the blade struck something. Vakar scrabbled eagerly, but it turned out to be a mere stone, not the bronze ring he sought.
On the other side of the wall the peculiar footsteps came and went again.
Then the blade struck another obstacle. This time it was the ring, rough with corrosion. Vakar, wishing he had a shovel, cleared away the dirt around it; then grasped it with both hands and heaved. It stuck fast.<
br />
He cleared away more of the dirt from the stone slab in which the ring was set and motioned Fual to hook as many fingers as possible into the ring also. Both heaved, and with a loud scraping and grinding the ring rose. As the slab tilted up on one edge, dirt showered into the hole, about two feet square, that yawned beneath it. Vakar pulled the stone up until it stuck in a nearly vertical position.
"Come on," he whispered, lowering himself into the hole.
-
IX. – DEATH BY FIRE
They had to crawl through a mere burrow. Vakar's knees were sore and he was sure that the tunnel had taken them clear to the other side of Nichok's lot when he rammed his head into the end of the tunnel.
He felt around overhead until he located the contours of the stone slab that topped this end of the tunnel. Gathering his forces he heaved. Inch by inch the stone rose. A wan light wafted into the tunnel.
Vakar thrust his head up through the opening. A single oil lamp feebly illumined a great round room like that which comprised the ground floor of Kurtevan's tower. A massive timber door was bolted on the inside.
Vakar climbed out, tiptoed over to the door, and listened. Though he thought he could hear those peculiar footsteps again, the door was too thick to be sure. He began hunting for the trapdoor which Kurtevan had told him led to the underground chamber where the rival wizard lay. It was not hard to find, for a bronze ring like that of the first slab was stapled to its upper surface. He bent and heaved upon the bronzen ring. This slab came up easily, revealing a square hole and the upper end of a ladder.
"Fual," he said, "get your sword ready ... What ails you?"
The little man was kneeling with tears running down his face. "Don't make me go down there, my lord! I had rather die! I'll not go though you torture me!"
"Damned spineless coward!" hissed Vakar, and hit Fual with the back of his hand, which merely made the Aremorian weep harder. "I don't see how you could have ever worked up the courage to steal anything when you were a thief!"
In his nervous fury Vakar could have killed the valet, save that he feared making a lot of noise and knew that he would need the fellow's help with Nichok's body later.
At this point even Prince Vakar's grim resolution nearly failed him. What if he went quietly away and returned home to say that he had failed in his search? Perhaps he could find another magician. Or he need not go home at all, but could hire out as a mercenary soldier in one of the mainland kingdoms, and to the seven hells with Lorsk ...
Then he caught Fual's eye, and pride of caste stiffened his sinews. It would never do to let a slave see him quail before peril. He started down into the hole.
He descended rapidly, anxious to get the worst over. The ladder led down into another chamber, smaller than that above, and like it lit by a single lamp. This lamp stood on one end of a large bier of black marble, on which lay a pallet and on the pallet, supine, a man. The fight of the lamp fell upon the man's upturned face and cast deep shadows across the hollows of his eyes and cheeks. The rest of his body, except for his sandalled feet, was wrapped in a black mantle.
The man lay quietly, only an occasional movement of his chest betraying the fact that he was alive. However, there should be something else in the room. In fact Vakar, though little given to fancies and premonitions, was sure there was something else. Something, he felt, was watching him. He could neither see it nor hear it, but the faint smell in the stagnant air was not simply that of an unventilated crypt.
Gripping his scabbard lest it clank, Vakar tiptoed toward the bier. He was about to mount the single step around the black block to look into Nichok's face when a noise caused him to start back.
Something stirred in the shadows on the far side of the bier. As Vakar watched, the thing unfolded and rose on many limbs until its stalked eyes looked across Nichok's body into those of Vakar Zhu.
It was an enormous crab.
The crab began to scuttle with horrifying speed around the bier. Before Vakar could move it was coming at him from his right. As he leaped back, sidling around the bier in his turn to keep the obstacle between them, the crab swung round and with a sweep of a huge chela knocked the ladder down. It fell with a loud clatter. Sweating with terror, Vakar realized that this was no mere crab, but an intelligent being.
The crab came at Vakar again, its claws rasping on the stone floor. Vakar dodged around the bier; the crab stopped and began circling the bier in the opposite direction. Vakar perforce reversed too.
How in the names of all the gods, he wondered, was he to get out of this? They could go on circling the stone block until one or the other collapsed from exhaustion, and he knew which that would be ...
No, they would not circle indefinitely; the crab had other ideas. Leg by leg it began climbing over the bier. Delicately it raised its feet so that its claws did not touch Nichok's body or the lamp, and stood swaying, balanced, its stalked eyes looking down into those of Vakar. The small forked antennae between the eye-stalks quivered and the many pairs of mandibles opened and shut, emitting a froth of bubbles.
The thing started to topple towards Vakar, who whirled and snatched at the ladder in the forlorn hope of getting it back in position and bolting up it. He had it partly raised when he heard the sharp sound of the crab's eight claws striking the floor behind him, and then the ladder was snatched out of his grasp. As he turned he heard the wood crunch under the grip of the great chelae that could snip off his head as easily as he could pinch off the head of a daisy.
The crab flung the ladder across the room and scuffled towards Vakar, chelae spread and opened. Vakar, backing towards a corner, drew and cut at the monster as it came within reach, but the sharp bronze bounced back from the hard shell without even scratching it. When Kurtevan had spoken of the guardian demon's vulnerability he had not mentioned the possibility of its having this loricated form.
Vakar felt the wall at his back. The chelae started to close in upon him.
In that last instant before he was cut to bits like a paper-doll scissored by an angry child, a picture crossed Vakar's mind. It was of himself as a boy playing on one of the royal estates on the coast of Lorsk along the western margins of Poseidon's, in the Bay of Kort. He was talking to an old fisherman who held a vainly struggling crab from behind with one horny hand and said:
"Eh, lad, keep your thumb on the belly of him and your fingers on the back, and he can't reach around to nip ye …"
With that Vakar knew what he had to do. As the chelae closed in he threw himself forward and down. He. hit the floor beneath the crab's mandibles and rolled frantically under the creature's belly, which cleared the floor by about two feet As the chelae closed on the empty air with a double snap, Vakar rose to his feet.
He was now behind the crab, which swivelled its eye-stalks back towards him and began to turn to face him again. Vakar leaped to the creature's broad hard-shelled back. With his free hand he seized one of the forked antennae, then pulled it back and held it like a rein, standing balanced with legs spread and knees bent on his unusual mount.
The crab circled, its chelae waving wildly and their great pincer-jaws snapping as it strove to reach back to grasp its foe, but the joints of its armor did not permit it that much flexibility.
Vakar swung his sword, with a silent prayer to the gods of Lorsk that his edge should prove true, and slashed at one of the eye-stalks; then at the other. Blue blood bubbled as the blinded crab clattered sideways across the room— and blundered into the stone bier.
The impact threw Vakar off its back, breaking his grip on the antenna. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the painful knock that he had received against the bier, and dodged away from the chelae. The -crab set off in the opposite direction until it crashed into the wall. Then it crept slowly sideways, the hinder end of its shell scraping against the stone, until it reached the nearest comer. There it crouched, its chelae raised and spread defensively.
Moving quietly, Vakar picked up the sword he had dropped, sheathed it, a
nd replaced the ladder. One of the rungs had been broken out of it when the crab seized it, and one of the uprights had been cracked by the pinch of the chelae. Vakar looked at it dubiously and then went to fetch the body of Nichok. He heaved the man up over his shoulder, staggered to the ladder, and began to climb. An ominous cracking came from the weakened upright, and he could feel the thing begin to give and turn under his hand and feet. Wouldn't it be just fine if it broke and dumped him down again into the trance-chamber with the crab for company and no way out?
He heaved his way up. Just as the ladder seemed about to give completely he heard Rial's voice:
"Hold, my lord! I'll pull him up."
Fual reached down and got hold of Nichok. With much grunting and heaving they manhandled the body up through the hole. Vakar followed as quickly as he could. When he gained the surface above he sat down with his feet dangling into the hole.
The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales Page 10